


Auribus Teneo Lupum

by Laine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, F/F, F/M, Implied Relationships, Sexual Violence, Sibling Rivalry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-13
Updated: 2012-04-03
Packaged: 2017-10-27 07:24:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 16
Words: 43,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/293173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laine/pseuds/Laine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Joffrey's murder and Tyrion's arrest, Sansa Stark's marriage is annulled.  But Tywin and Cersei Lannister have no intention of letting her go so easily.  Alternate universe.  Jaime, Cersei, Sansa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an alternate universe fic; I've futzed around a lot with the timeline of events. In this version, Joffrey is dead, Tyrion's been arrested for the murder, and the Lannisters have decided to acquit Sansa. And there the story begins.
> 
> "Auribus Teneo Lupum" translates to "I have the wolf by the ears".

 

 

"Have I said something amusing?"

Tywin Lannister, Warden of the West, Lord of Casterly Rock and Hand of the King, folded his hands atop the polished wooden table, his omnipresent frown immovable as ever. He narrowed his gold-green eyes only a fraction, kept his posture ramrod straight as he regarded the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, who seemed incapable of preventing his mouth from twitching with incredulous laughter.

Ser Jaime Lannister, resplendent in his golden armor and white cloak, tilted his head slightly to the side, asked a question that had certainly never before been posed to Lord Tywin: " _Surely_  you are joking."

A pursing of the lips, a lift of silver eyebrows constituted his father's reply. Jaime turned his gaze to his sister, seated at Lord Tywin's right. The Queen Regent only mirrored their father's posture, green eyes shining with a strangely triumphant glow. All he could think to do was shake his head, waiting for one of them to abandon the jape and speak to their true purpose.

Still waiting. Still nothing. He supposed he may as well play along:

"Well, Father," he drawled, "there seems to be a small obstacle to this plan." He used his left hand to grip the edge of his white cloak, waving it like a banner before the table. "I don't know if you recall, but I am a member of the Kingsguard. Nay, the  _Lord Commander_ of the Kingsguard. And as such-"

Cersei smacked her palm against the table, a slip of parchment beneath her delicate hand. She wore an ornate ring of emerald and pearl on her fourth finger; he watched the play of sunlight on the gems as she tapped her fingers on the letter. "Read it," she spoke quietly, lips stretched taut in an unnerving approximation of a smile.

He leaned forward, placed both the good and the gold hands upon the table- his left index finger lightly brushed over Cersei's, and she flinched. A brief scan of the text, and he stared hard into his sister's eyes, those perfect reflections of his own. His words came in a threatening hiss, jaw clenched tight: "You can't do this."

Any casual acquaintance of Cersei's would have found her expression thoroughly non-plussed, but he knew her too well for that, knew her too well to ignore the subtle narrowing of her eyes, the near-indiscernible widening of her smile. "No, but the King can." She pressed a finger to the bottom of the page: there, in wobbling script, Tommen's signature.

"So you see, " Lord Tywin clipped, "there's no hindrance at all."

Jaime felt the blood rushing to his face, curled his remaining hand into a fist. Lord Tywin opted to ignore his son's obvious rage, continuing in as placid a tone as ever. "I've asked very little of you, Jaime. In comparison with your sister" - he watched Cersei puff her chest out just a bit, and the sight caused his stomach to twist- "and even with your brother, you've been relieved of a great deal of responsibility, thanks to the Kingsguard."

Jaime opened his mouth to protest, to ask whether there could be a greater responsibility than defending the realm, defending the king...but to make such claims about the Kingsguard... _Gods, I'd never be able to keep a straight face._

Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest, allowing defiance to seep into his tone. "What is the Stark girl to you, Father? The Starks have lost Winterfell. None of them remain in the North. How valuable can her claim possibly be?"

"She's as dangerous now as ever- more, perhaps, for whatever Tyrion might have told her." The sound of their brother's name caused Cersei to stiffen with anger-  _she's taken to grinding her teeth again._

"It is your time to serve the family, Jaime. This is what I command. You'll marry the Stark girl, put a child in her, hold Winterfell under her name." Tywin's lips stretched into a straight line; as close to a smile as he'd ever allow. Jaime looked at Cersei again, felt a sudden and terrifying urge to slap the smugness from her face.

There was nothing to say, nothing to do. He reached his left hand up, removed the white cloak roughly from his shoulders, threw it at Cersei, who cried out when a corner of the fabric poked her in the eye.

"If I have your leave, Your Grace," he snarled, dipping his head in what might pass for a bow. Cersei gave no response save a glare, and he watched her twist the fabric of the cloak tightly around her hands. He found himself starting to recall the many other times she'd had his cloak balled up in her fists; he pivoted on his heel, hastened toward the exit.

"And Jaime," Lord Tywin called, "your brother failed to do his duty, even on the night of their wedding. Do not think to do the same- you  _will_ get a child on that girl. I'll not have it said that both my sons are less than men."

The lightest exhalation of breath, a sound he might have missed from anyone but her...Cersei, laughing.

 _Are you truly so vengeful, sister?_


	2. Chapter 2

She'd been a pretty thing, Sansa Stark, only weeks ago. Tall and well-developed for her age, with lustrous hair and clear skin- she was, Cersei often thought, fairer to look upon than the Tyrell girl that everyone fawned over so absurdly. But this sallow creature standing before her...Cersei sighed, gestured to the girl to step inside. "Sansa. Close the door, if you will."

The girl did as she was told. The Queen Regent noted Sansa's refusal to look her in the eye, smiled inwardly at the observation. "To me, child."

Sansa Stark glanced about the room, wide blue eyes clouded with bemusement. Indeed, the small chamber seemed a strange place for an audience with the Queen Regent; just simple stone walls, a wooden chair, a mattress pallet at center. Cersei lowered herself into the chair, and when Sansa hesitantly approached, she gestured to the cot. "Sit. Please."

Obedient as always, the little wolf girl. Cersei folded her arms over her knees, leaned toward the last Stark with a smile on her exquisite face. "I expect you've been told of your upcoming wedding, little sister."

Sansa nodded, but spoke not a word. The Queen Regent glanced down at the girl's hands- she'd bitten her nails down to the quick. She placed her own well-manicured, jewel-laden hand on Sansa's, her grin widening when she felt the child tremble. "I am pleased to keep you in my family, sweetling."

"Your pleasure is mine, Your Grace." So courteous, even now.

"This afternoon, you'll visit the septons, and they shall annul your first marriage." She tilted her golden head, forced herself into the girl's line of vision. "Do you know what it means, to annul?"

"It...it will be as though the marriage never occurred..." She ended the sentence with a question mark, and Cersei nodded.

"Will Lord Tyrion be there?" Sansa's eyes-  _still lovely, though the rest of her has faded so dreadfully_ \- held some indecipherable blend of emotions; Cersei thought that one of them might have been pity, and she clenched her hand on the girl's until Sansa emitted a little chirp of discomfort.

"Tyrion will never see the light of day again." She loosened her jaw-  _Mother's voice, warning me that I'll grind my teeth down to powder...-_ coated her voice in honey once more.

"Now, in order to annul your marriage, we must assure the septons that  _he_  never penetrated you."

"He did not." Sansa seemed to know what was about to transpire; a sheen of sweat appeared on her brow, accompanied by a blush that looked far too loud against her parchment-pale skin.

"I believe you, child. But we must be sure." Cersei rose, stepped to the foot of the pallet. "Lie down and spread your legs."

"But...but the septas..." Her eyes darted left and right-  _there's no one here to help you, little wolf._

"Never mind the septas." When Sansa pressed her knees together, Cersei took one kneecap in each hand, roughly separating her thighs. "If the Queen Regent vouchsafes your maidenhood, who will dare say otherwise?" The girl shivered as Cersei slipped a hand beneath her skirts, tugging her smallclothes down around her ankles.

"Now, Sansa, tell me. Are you a horsewoman?"

"I-" She sputtered, and her fear was delicious. "I ride sidesaddle, Your Grace."

"Of course. As all proper ladies do." Slim fingers moved over the soft hair that sheathed Sansa's sex. "Then there should be blood...that is, if you are a maiden."

She glanced up at the Stark girl, meeting blue eyes with green. A lift of golden eyebrows, daring the girl to object, to protest...but only silence. Silence punctuated with Sansa's breathing, tighter and more ragged with each inhale.

Cersei prodded the girl's slit-  _tight, tight, tight_. Her finger tip pushed into the warm flesh...she continued on, slipping in to her knuckle- the girl jerked, whined, but Cersei's other hand flat on her abdomen stilled her movement. A strand of coarse red hair caught on the filigree ring she wore- her smile widening, Cersei pushed the rest of her finger, ring and all, into Sansa. A well-filed nail scraped at the girl's inner wall; she screamed lightly, subdued only by a knife-sharp glare from the Queen Regent.

"Don't be so craven, you little fool," she hissed, plunging another finger in after the first. "This isn't anything in comparison to the feel of a man inside you."  _The feel of Jaime inside you_...She caught her breath a bit at that, hoped that the girl wouldn't see the color rising in her cheeks.

Perhaps it was not worth it, this scheme she and Father had concocted. Her nipples still grew hard when she thought of that mad coupling in the sept, his cock inside her, her thighs sticky with moon blood and Jaime, her Jaime...

But she could not forgive the defiance, the disrespect, the gall. She was the Regent, not him...he believed himself beyond her influence, beyond her power... _He'll see. They all will see._

A sharp shriek, muffled by a hand over the mouth- lost in her own thoughts, Cersei hadn't realized that she'd been fucking Sansa mercilessly with her fingers. She pulled the digits out of the girl's body, frowned when she noticed the dark blood crusted in the contours of her rings. A sigh- she supposed she'd have to clean them herself.

"There's a basin in the cupboard- take care to wash yourself." Cersei stood, smoothed her clean hand over the folds of her satin gown.

She didn't want to look the girl in the eye, began to shrink away toward the door; but a lion does not run. The naked, animal hurt in Sansa's eyes...Cersei felt the sudden compulsion to gather the child in her arms, smooth her hand over the red curls and beg her pardon.

 _When did you grow so weak?_

Instead, the Queen Regent fixed the girl with a disapproving stare. "Cry, if you must, but you'll thank me for it on your wedding night." She pushed the door open with her right hand; the blood on her fingertips left markings on the wood. "The sept, this afternoon."

Sansa opened her mouth, as though about to speak- but Cersei swept from the room, the door clanging shut behind her.


	3. Chapter 3

What she lacked in patience, Cersei more than made up for in her ability to focus. Jaime recalled the games they'd play as children at Casterly Rock, when they'd look into each other's eyes and try not to blink first. He'd never won.

All of that intense, unwavering concentration, now centered on Sansa Stark. Jaime lowered his head to take a sip of wine, using the opportunity to glance at the quiet girl seated beside him. Sansa, who had once worked so fastidiously to plait her hair in the intricate coils that Cersei had made popular, wore her tresses unbound, hanging in a heavy sheet to the middle of her back. Her clothing was simple, determinedly free of adornment. In the plain robe, with the loose hair and impossibly pale face, she looked for all the world like an acolyte of the Seven Sisters. He flicked his eyes over to Cersei on his other side- she continued to glower at the Stark girl, her tongue working in her cheek, raking her gaze over Sansa's face, hair and body.  _A curious form of rebellion...but subtle. Elegant, even._

Though the meal had nearly reached its end, Sansa's dish remained entirely untouched. The girl sat straight in her chair, hands folded in her lap, not even troubling to push her fork around the plate. When the servants came round to clear the table, they looked at Sansa quizzically; she gestured to one to remove the dish. But Cersei's voice, laden with an icy chill, interrupted:

"Leave it there." Sansa blinked up, glanced at the Queen Regent, then stared back down again. Cersei addressed her next words to the girl, a dangerous edge hidden beneath the sweetness of tone. "Sansa, sweetling. You haven't touched a bite."

"I'm not hungry, Your Grace." She flexed her fingers under the table, pointedly refusing to meet the Queen's eyes again. _Oh, good girl_ , he found himself thinking, growing rather impressed with this passive defiance.

"But you never broke your fast this morning, nor at midday meal." Cersei pressed her lips together, looked to Lord Tywin, as though expecting him to come to her aid. Their father, however, remained stone-faced and silent.  _That's right. Reap what you sow, Your Grace._

She looked away from Lord Tywin, focused on Sansa once again. "You've not eaten all day."

"Nor yesterday, either," Sansa murmured. Jaime snorted into his wine glass, only to be rewarded by the sharp collision of Cersei's heel on his shin.

"Very well, then." The Queen Regent rose, and the courtiers followed suit. She looked to Ser Meryn, standing by the entrance. "Ser, please remain here with Lady Stark. She's not to move from the table until she eats something. Anything."

Gods, this is humiliating. He wondered whether he ought to say something, whether, as Sansa's betrothed, he had any ability to overrule the Regent's command. Were he still the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, he could at least prevent Ser Meryn from taking part...

A hard look from his father, and Jaime rose to his feet, galled by his own obedience. Before stepping away from the table, he caught a quick look at Sansa's face. He'd expected redness in the cheeks, tears in the eyes- but she remained statue-still, blue eyes trained on her folded hands. He continued to watch her as he moved toward the door, waiting for her to look up- wanted to see if there was fire behind that remarkably blank stare- when she failed to do so, he found himself vaguely disappointed.

* * *

Jaime stalked out of the White Tower, bristling with pique. The knights of the Kingsguard had taken the news of his severance in stride; realizing how little he'd be missed upset him more than he would have expected.  _I was never meant for leadership._

Cersei had ordered chambers prepared for him on the opposite end of the castle from her own.  _She thinks she's punishing me. And maybe she is._

Passing the Great Hall en route to his rooms, he stole a peek inside and very nearly laughed at the sight: Sansa Stark asleep, head buried in folded arms on the tabletop. The dish of food completely unaltered, Ser Meryn tapping his foot and whistling ...the tableau should have been hilarious. And yet there was something profoundly sad about this fragile woman-child, jaw stubbornly set even as she slept.

He stepped into the hall- Ser Meryn rose, clearly out of habit. "Lord C- Lord Lannister."

Jaime greeted the knight with a curt nod before crossing to the girl at the table. He placed his left hand on her shoulder, shook her gently. "My lady."

Sansa tilted her head, eyes barely open as she replied, "I haven't moved from the table. Tell him, Ser Meryn. You may go to Her Grace, let her know that I have not moved."

"I see that." A smile started to pull at his lips, but he knew that she'd interpret it as mockery. Instead, he moved his hand to her upper back, nudged her a bit. "Go on. Stand up."

He watched her plant her feet to the floor, but her eyes trailed over the muscles in his arm and, surely realizing that he could overpower her easily, she soon abandoned the resistance and obeyed.

Once she drew herself fully upright, Jaime turned to Ser Meryn. "You may inform my sister that I'll be escorting Lady Stark back to her chambers."

"But...but the Queen Regent told me-"

"What do your manners tell you, ser?" Ser Meryn looked about to protest again, but Jaime cut him off before he could begin: "This girl is no scullery whelp, but a high-born lady. She will be treated with the appropriate dignity. If my sister has anything to say about it, tell her to speak to me."

He offered the Stark girl his arm; she glanced back and forth between him and the table, as though deliberating her next move, but eventually allowed him to lead her from the hall.

"Starving yourself in protest, then?" He asked once they started to proceed down the corridor. She turned her head to face him, and he felt quite satisfied by the challenge in her expression.

"Will you command me to cease?"

"Not at all, my lady." She was surprised by that- a series of quick blinks before she looked away. "In all honesty, I quite admire your fortitude."

She opened her mouth, clearly unsure whether to thank him for the praise. Eventually, she settled on an acknowledging nod, and he continued:

"But starvation...it is an  _ugly_  way to die."

He watched her face in the dim candlelight, expression wavering between curiosity and the desire to appear disinterested. She did respond, however, in a slightly higher pitch than usual:

"How do you mean?"

Jaime steered her into a brightly lit corner just outside her bedroom door. He took one of her hands in his good one, lifted it up to the light. "Your nails are weakening already," he observed, brushing the tip of his thumb over the brittle surface. "That will continue, until they eventually fall off altogether." He proceeded to the top of her hand, where the dry skin began to scale. "Your skin will be a disaster. It will change in color, then shrivel and crack until movement is too painful to bear."

He stole a glance at her face, found her appropriately stricken. He moved along to her hair, twisting an auburn lock around his index finger. "Your hair will grow thin, and then start to shed- you'll be bald as Varys by the end." When he gripped her shoulders with both the real and false hands, she gave a little gasp of surprise. "You'll become sick, sicker than you've ever been in your life. If you can pass water, it will be brown, maybe even black. Your muscles will fail, until even breathing becomes too difficult. And then you'll just...slip away."

It required real effort to keep from laughing at her slack jaw and wide eyes, but he restrained himself all the same.

"You've seen this happen?"

He did laugh a bit at that, a cynical sniff. "I've been to war, girl. What do you think?" He tilted his golden head, bent his knees to look her in the eye. "Now tell me. Is that any way for a wolf to die?"

Those Tully eyes flashed with anger-  _ah, there's the fire_ \- and she roughly shunted his hands from her shoulders. "If you are trying to make me speak treason-"

He just watched, watched until her words failed, watched until the spark of rage gave way to a wistful sort of melancholy, tinged with fear. She took several small steps backward until she made contact with her bedroom door. "I...I beg your pardon, my lord. I spoke too harshly..."

"Not at all." He stepped toward her and took her hand. Her body stiffened, but she did not resist as he brushed his lips over her knuckles. "Sleep well, my lady."

He felt her eyes on the back of his head, watching as he retreated down the corridor, but he did not look back...he felt he was doing her a kindness.

* * *

When he arrived in the Great Hall the next morning, Jaime found his betrothed delicately nibbling along the edge of a shortbread, several cherry pits on the dish in front of her.


	4. Chapter 4

_I couldn't even have a new dress._

The thought rankled her with its shallow stupidity, but Sansa clung to it nonetheless as she stood stock-still before the looking glass, allowing the seamstress to finish the necessary alterations. One sleeve stubbornly persisted on sliding from Sansa's shoulders; it was there that she found the spot.

Very tiny, almost inperceptible...but there it was, dark against the white fabric of the gown- a splotch of Arbor red, surely put there by some clumsy reveler at her last wedding. The stain had darkened into a rusty sort of brown, nearly the color of Sansa's hair. And she could not stop looking at it.

She heard the seamstress behind her give a little sigh of frustration.  _I cannot blame her, really.._.She'd shed enough weight in the weeks since her first marriage to render the fitting a tedious task, although her decision to abandon the hunger protest had brought much of the roundness back to her face. Even so...when she tilted her head up to look in the mirror, she only noticed the pallid skin, limp hair, chapped lips. It mattered not what the seamstress did; she looked like a frail child playing at weddings in her mother's clothing. She quickly rejected that line of thought- _my eyes are red enough as it is._

The women sent to style her hair faced a task even more arduous. The Queen Regent dispatched her own personal cosmetic maids to tend to Sansa on the day of her wedding. They descended upon her, plaiting her hair and pinning it up in the southron fashion- or, at least, they attempted to do so. A memory sprung unbidden into Sansa's head- she and Arya in Winterfell, Lady Catelyn's maids working to make them presentable for the arrival of the royal family. She, of course, had submitted willingly, but her sister.. _.What would Arya do, were she here?_  She'd surely scratch and squirm and pummel until released...considering such behavior a tad extreme, Sansa opted instead to toss her hair, flinging the pins about the room with each shake. The maids pulled at the auburn locks, implored her to hold still- she heard one of Cersei's ladies-in-waiting- one of those fool Tyrells, perhaps- asking where her courtesies had gone. _I've no idea. And for the first time, I honestly don't care._

Eventually tiring of the maids' hapless efforts to keep her from moving, Sansa spoke crisply: "Leave it down." They demurred, weaving strands of silver into the loose curls. A small victory, but Sansa smiled all the same.

A creak of door hinges, and she found herself in the company of both the Queen and Queen Regent. Margaery, a rosy vision in a violet gown, stepped tentatively toward Sansa, a sickeningly disingenuous smile on her lovely face. "Sansa. You look beautiful," she sighed, and Sansa felt suddenly torn between the urge to laugh over the other girl's blatant lie and the urge to shove her lissome body into the wall.  _I believed you my friend...what a fool I was._  Until the day she died, Sansa would never forgive the Tyrells for their reticence during the aftermath of Joffrey's death.  _They spoke not a word for me. Were it up to them, I'd be in that cell with Tyrion._

The Queen Regent, however, did not share her good-daughter's opinion of Sansa's appearance. She crossed to the girl in white, lips pursed tight. A dangerous flicker of green eyes toward the maidservants, and she spoke in a low, nearly menacing tone: "This is the best you could do?" Sansa glanced down at the fabric Cersei held, and her stomach twisted; the grey-and-white Stark cloak, in Lannister arms. Her fingers itched, but she restrained herself from snatching the cloak away, instead twisting her hands in the skirt of her gown.

Cersei surveyed the other women in the room before issuing a simple command: "Leave us." Sansa watched Margaery push her tongue into her cheek, obviously wondering whether to obey, but she followed her cousins into the antechamber.

While observing the cloak in Cersei's hands, Sansa had noticed the jewelry the other woman wore; the silver filigree ring, freshly polished, on her right index finger. A chill crept up her back, but she forced herself to meet the Queen Regent's eyes.

Cersei Lannister stepped closer, until she stood barely a finger-length from Sansa. The girl anticipated a slap, a shout, perhaps something worse...but Cersei only stared, beautiful emerald eyes unblinking. Her eyes, so like her brother's...in the darkness of her bedchamber, Sansa had tried to think, tried to imagine what it would be like, being bedded by Jaime Lannister. She dared not hope that he'd show the same mercy as his brother-  _I'd never be so fortunate_. But whenever she pictured his hands-  _ **hand** , rather_\- on her, pictured him atop her in the dark, his face morphed into Cersei's- only a small adjustment- and she felt ill again.

"Turn around." Sansa balked, but eventually pivoted to face the mirror. Cersei tugged at the neckline of the gown until the fabric rested securely on her shoulders. Her hands moved down to the back of the bodice, where she folded the material several times before cinching it tight with a grey satin sash. All the activity quick and efficient, performed by capable hands...Sansa felt her inner muscles clench, forced her face to remain still.

Cersei combed her fingers through the unbound waves of auburn. "Your hair..." She bit her lip. "I suppose it isn't inappropriate for a maiden bride to wear her hair loose." She crossed to a small table in the corner, returning with a tiny glass pot in her hand. A lift of the lid revealed a rosy pigment, which Cersei dabbed over the dry surface of Sansa's lips. She trailed a thumb over the girl's cheekbone, her voice barely above a whisper. "My brother is very dear to me, Sansa. If I learn that you've misbehaved, I shall have to become very angry with you." Both smooth, white hands now cupped the sides of Sansa's face. "You'll be a good girl, will you not?"

 _Arya would spit in her face and ru_ n. But Sansa, even while testing the limits of her own defiance, would never be Arya. So she nodded, her head growing heavier with each bob. "Your Grace."

The Queen smiled, and Sansa thought that she'd never seen anything so beautiful and terrible in all her life. "You're so pale, sweetling..." she murmured. Before Sansa could reply, she cried out in painful surprise; Cersei had taken each cheek between her thumb and forefinger, pinching until bright splotches of red appeared on Sansa's face.

Finally, Cersei moved behind Sansa and draped the cloak over her shoulders. The girl stiffened at the feel of the Queen's cold metal rings against her collarbone, tensed even farther when Cersei's lips brushed over her temple. "No tears, now." Sansa hadn't any intention of crying, but the suggestion caused a hard knot to form in her throat. When the Queen steered her into the antechamber to greet the ladies of her train, Sansa felt herself nearly choke on the mucus building in her nose and throat. _I **will**  choke on it before I let her see me cry again._

* * *

King Tommen I of House Baratheon awaited them outside the sept. Sansa couldn't help but smile at the plump, jovial boy, clad in Lannister crimson. Margaery bent her knees to kiss her husband atop his golden curls before filing into the sept, her ladies close behind her. Cersei waited until the last to enter through the doors, a hard stare and a lift of one eyebrow her only farewell.

"It's all strange, isn't it, Sansa?" Tommen chirped after she settled her hand into the crook of his arm.

"What is strange, Your Grace?"

"Well, first you were to be my sister, then Joffrey married Margaery instead. Then you were my aunt, but Uncle Tyrion went away. And then you were just Sansa...and now you're my aunt again."

The simple statement of the facts affected her more than she would have imagined. The hot tears pushed against her eyes, but she stretched her face into a forced smile instead. "I suppose that's one of the strange things about it, Your Grace."

The enormous doors opened again, and she and Tommen began their processional to the front of the sept. She looked down and let her eyes travel to the bottom of her right sleeve. In the cool afternoon light, the wine splotch could almost pass for blood.


	5. Chapter 5

After two decades of life at court, Jaime Lannister had attended more weddings than any one person should ever have to endure. Perhaps it was the knowledge that he, as a member of the Kingsguard, would never have to take part in one of his own, but he'd always found the pomp and ceremony of it all fairly ridiculous. The delicate maiden bride, the exchanging of the cloaks, the illusion that any of it signified lasting happiness-  _Cersei's wedding was as beautiful as could be, and look what came of that._

The memory remained fresh in his mind's eye: his golden, radiant, perfect sister, clinging to Robert Baratheon's arm, a light in her eyes that should belong only to him. When she found Jaime in the crowd, he let himself feel just a bit satisfied at the pull of a frown at her lips, the sheen wearing off of her happiness. But it proved little consolation. He'd gathered around her with the other men for the bedding ceremony, reaching her first and removing the Baratheon cloak from her shoulders. He rested his hand on her brilliant hair, she leaned into his touch; a silent apology. But when the courtiers began to unlace her dress, jesting and cheering, he stepped away, returned to his cups. He spent the night in the stables, vomiting in a trough and trying not to imagine Cersei in that idiot oaf's arms.

She'd come back to him, of course- she always had, and he thought she always would...he caught a glimpse of her in peripheral vision, a flash of red and gold. He wanted to look her in the eye, to discover whether she shared any of the pain he'd suffered, all those years ago, but the prospect of receiving only her superior, self-satisfied smile proved too troubling to chance.

Instead, he let his gaze wander to the far end of the sept- perhaps a more damning mistake, for he immediately locked eyes with Brienne, who leaned against the wall by the door. He'd never in his life encountered an expression of such powerful contempt- and considering the looks the Kingslayer had received from Ned Stark, Barristan Selmy, his own father-  _no small feat, to be sure_. He had very pointedly avoided the Maid of Tarth since the announcement of his betrothal- he knew how she would look at him, knew what she would say. And he knew that she was right.

He should have refused. He should have stood firm, faced banishment or treason charges with his head held aloft. Jaime knew this, and yet he weakened, acquiesced just as he had when Lord Tywin had ordered him to lie to Tyrion about the crofter's daughter. _Perhaps it is not too late...if I stand here before them all and tell them that I will not..._

But then he watched Sansa step down the aisle on Tommen's arm. Catelyn Tully Stark in miniature-although rather prettier, if he recalled correctly.  _I swore I'd see you safe_. If he rejected the marriage, what would become of the last of the Starks? He'd seen the predatory gleam in Cersei's eye when she looked at the girl; she'd never let her go in peace. And Lord Tywin-  _she's as dangerous now as ever_ \- had proven his willingness to kill children before. He'd surely make no exception for Sansa Stark.

 _This is all I can do._

He scarcely heard the septon's words; the sounds converged in his ears, melding into a soft buzz. Sansa Stark never looked at him, her cerulean gaze firmly fixed on the bottom of her right sleeve. A few moments of silence and a pointed nod from the septon cued him to remove his cloak- his left hand fumbled at the clasp...although he couldn't see her, couldn't hear her, he could feel Cersei snickering.

Jaime stepped behind Sansa and brushed her hair over one shoulder. The direwolf stitched into the fabric of her cloak had its teeth bared in a vicious snarl- he wondered vaguely whether Sansa had sewn it herself. Reaching over her collarbone, he was surprised- and a little embarrassed- to discover that she'd already loosened the ties on her cloak, requiring him only to slip the heavy fabric off her shoulders and drape the Lannister cloak over her instead. He kissed her on one cheek, then the other, then briefly on her mouth. All he registered was the dryness of her lips and the fact that she kept her eyes wide open.

The feast passed quickly, which he considered a mercy. The Arbor wine flowed readily; Cersei drank, Jaime drank, Tywin watched them both with disapproval- like usual.

While not exactly rude, Sansa proved rather disinclined to engage in conversation with any of the adults at the table. She spoke a little with Queen Margaery, exchanged one or two words with Cersei (none of which Jaime was able to overhear), and spent the rest of the feast chatting with Tommen about the kittens he wished to acquire.

When the King retired for bed, Sansa retreated into herself once again. Jaime took a glance into her goblet, found it full of the honeyed milk Tommen had been drinking. He shook his head, gestured to a servant to replace it with wine. She started to protest- "I don't care for the taste of wine."

"You won't be drinking it for the taste, my lady wife," Jaime replied. When she made no motion to lift the glass, he nudged it toward the edge of the table. "Please."

She looked at him then, and he was startled to find her gaze nearly as intense and unfaltering as Cersei's. Nothing remained of the dainty little girl-child who'd followed her golden prince with lowered lashes and soft smiles. Even the broken, quivering thing who'd awaited her fate with tears and trembling hands after Joffrey's murder...even she was nowhere to be found. The girl who sat before him now was a remote, wintry creature with all the stubborn abandon of one who no longer cared whether she lived or died.

And Jaime Lannister knew, knew what it was not to fear death- not out of courage, but out of utter hopelessness. But Sansa Stark was too young for that, too young to be so blank, so disenchanted.  _In spite of it all, she **should**  care._

He pressed her to drink one glass, then another, until she began to sway in her seat, the red wine staining her lips. He wished then to do as Tyrion had done and refuse the bedding ceremony- but it was too late for that.

The women surrounded him, Cersei at the front. She slipped her hands under his doublet, undid the clasps- her fingertips brushed over his chest, and he felt himself begin to harden. He reached his left hand to touch her hair- but she sidestepped and moved away from him, leaving the other ladies of the court to take care of the rest.

A quick glance over to Sansa: she calmly submitted to the removal of her clothing, her lips firmly pressed together, her eyes blinking in rhythm. As was customary with younger brides, she'd been stripped only to her smallclothes. He quickly took inventory of her garments- a light linen slip over drawers of the same material. Simple, white and absurdly juvenile, but he found the picture pleasant all the same.

Before pulling the doors to Jaime's bedchamber closed, Lord Tywin hissed in his son's ear: "I'll have my men listening out here all night. Either that girl will have to be a very good actress, or you will take her maidenhead." Jaime barely had time to be appalled before the doors slammed shut, leaving him alone with his child bride.

* * *

To her credit, Sansa seemed rather composed for a newly-flowered girl about to lose her maidenhood. She made no effort to retreat beneath his bedlinens, but instead propped herself on the pillows, hands in her lap, fussing a bit with a loose sliver of skin at her cuticle. The fidgeting gave her away, and he quickly noticed the twitch forming in her right cheek, the uneven patterns of her breath.

Jaime seated himself on the end of the bed. He deliberated whether to drape a coverlet over his lap, but eventually decided against it. He felt he had to say something to her, even something as idiotic as what he eventually blurted out:

"Are you afraid, Sansa?"

She looked up from her hands. "I..." A soft shrug, a shake of russet hair. "I don't know, my lord." Then a blink of those blue eyes, followed by a steely stare. "Have I reason to be?"

He could not help laughing at that, but felt immediately chastised by the pang of hurt shadowing her face. He responded in as gentle a tone as he could manage: "I don't believe so. No." He turned his shoulders to face her, extended his left hand. "Come."

Sansa slid from the pillows and stood before him, slipping her notably small hand into his. He watched her glance quickly down at his lap, then back up again. He pulled just a bit, and she stepped forward, close enough that several long strands of auburn hair brushed his shoulder.

And then, to his surprise, she reached down and took his right wrist in her hand. She stroked her fingers over the seam where his flesh made contact with the gold- he felt himself begin to shiver. Her voice, quiet and deliberate: "Does it hurt you?"

"No." He could have left it at that, but instead he elaborated: "I forget, sometimes, that it's gone...I'll think that I feel my fingers tingling."

He hesitated before looking up, unsure whether he could abide pity from this girl. But she only nodded, her eyes impenetrable as ever.

Sansa looked back down at the golden hand before drawing his arm around her leg and placing the metal on the back of her knee. He watched, weirdly mesmerised, as she shuddered. Her voice, high and quiet: "It's cold."

Looking down to his left, Jaime realized how tightly he'd been clinging to Sansa's hand- his knuckles went white. He released her, let his fingertips trail down her bare leg before settling his palm on her thigh.

 _Cersei and I were about this age, when we lay together for the first time_. He hadn't been able to last long- just three thrusts, maybe four, before he spurted his seed inside his sister. She'd only smiled, guided his hand down to rub her in the spot she liked until she reached her own climax. But then, he and Cersei had spent years playing together, touching each other- he couldn't expect the confidence of a teenage Cersei from the solemn little waif he'd just married.

And so he moved slowly, carefully. He lowered her onto his knee- she jumped a little when her leg made contact with the hardness between his legs. Jaime tried to use his imagination, tried to think how a girl this age would want to be kissed.  _What did you dream about when you sang your songs, Sansa Stark?_  He lifted his left hand and tucked an errant lock of hair behind her ear before drawing her face close to his. "Have you ever been kissed, Sansa? Truly kissed?"

Something flickered in her eyes, something sharp and bright that he did not understand. Her hand rested on his back, her answer one clear, determined syllable: "Yes."

She didn't resist when he pressed his closed lips to hers, and when he opened his mouth, she followed suit. Jaime gathered the hem of her slip in his left hand and made a clumsy attempt to pull it over her shoulders. When she relieved him of the duty and removed the garment herself, he tried to quickly dismiss the bruising of his pride.

He shifted to place her on the bed, let himself register the sight of her, naked from the waist up. Still a girl, to be sure, and her brief foray into self-inflicted starvation did nothing to enhance her shape. But she was budding; she'd be as tall as Cersei soon, perhaps taller, with a woman's curves. In a sudden flash of madness, he wished to ask her if Tyrion had gotten this far, if he had touched her at all...but the very idea was petty and cruel enough to upset his stomach.

He propped himself up on his right arm, leaning over to kiss the hollow of her throat, the thumb of his good hand brushing over her pert nipples. She released a breathy little sigh, and he felt a rush of blood to his cock.

But when he moved his hand to her thighs and attempted to nudge them open, she snapped them shut with such force that the sound of the clap reached the men outside the door, who responded with a string of off-color jests and jeers.

He thought on what his father had said, wondered if it might be worthwhile to tell Sansa to feign her screams and moans...but as he looked at her splayed on his bed, red hair against white skin, a soft blush creeping into her cheeks as he touched her... When he met her eyes again, he saw a hint of something beneath the apprehension and cool reserve that perhaps resembled desire-  _or else you're just a middle-aged fool, desperately wanting a pretty young girl to find you appealing._

Jaime tried again to part her legs, only to meet the same resistance. It wasn't unusual for a maiden to fear the act of bedding, but surely she understood, surely she knew this was what he- what everyone- expected?

He leaned forward to kiss her again. "Sansa..." he whispered, brushing his finger over the outline of her hip. "Best to just have it done."

A pause, as she considered this. She bit her lip, furrowed her brow, and eventually tucked her chin into her chest in a strange sort of nod. Before he could touch her again, she lifted her own hips off of the bed, reaching down to pull the ties of her drawers and remove them. Then she parted her knees, placing her feet flat on the mattress.

It was easier than Jaime expected, lying with a woman-  _a **girl**_  - who was not Cersei. Although he knew himself capable of becoming aroused by other women, he somehow believed that acting on those urges would be pointless, since nothing could compare to what he had with his sister. And it was true- his experiences with his twin, that ultimate joining of two into one, were wholly singular. But Sansa's body was soft and pliant, and when he finally eased a finger into her, he found her as tight and hot as Cersei had ever been.

 _Not nearly wet enough, though_. A part of him wanted to ignore it, to take her anyway and have it over with. But he remembered the primal fear in her eyes when he'd first tried to part her legs-  _I don't want to hurt her any more than I must_. He placed another finger on the nub just above her opening, where Cersei had always loved to be touched, and moved in soft, quick circles. She squirmed, but he felt encouraged by her little bird-like chirps.

 _Still not quite there_. The next thought that came to him initially seemed absurd, far too intimate for anyone but Cersei- but the further stiffening of his cock that accompanied the idea propelled him to act on it.

Jaime kissed her between her legs, sliding his tongue over her folds and into her cunt. He laughed when he felt Sansa's foot on his back and heard the sharp gasp of astonishment. Her sounds, quiet and timid as they were, obviously bespoke her pleasure- as did the clenching of her fist in his hair. He soon felt her grow slick with her own wetness; he slipped his tongue out and moved to gently suck the little button above her slit, and the high-pitched cry that resulted caused the revelers in the hall to howl with laughter.

He thought that he could perhaps make her come first- she might experience less pain with her body limp from release. But no; her muscles still held far too much tension, she still punctuated every whimper with a vigilant lift of her shoulders, those damnably-alert blue eyes refused to flutter shut. Instead, he lightly kissed up her body- her hipbone, her belly, between her breasts. The last kiss fell on her forehead as he positioned her knees on either side of his hips and slowly pressed the tip of his cock into her.

He had absolutely every intention of going slowly, moving in bit by bit, but he had his weight braced on the golden hand, still moist with the sweat from both their bodies- he lost his balance, nearly falling atop her, and the forward movement pushed him in to the hilt.

She screamed- _of course she screamed_ \- but he barely heard her over his own throaty groan as the wet tightness enveloped him. The expected panic flashed in her eyes-  _at least there are no tears_. Jaime lifted his hips until only the tip of him remained inside her, leaning forward to kiss her brow again. Lips trailed down to her temple, and he found himself mouthing words of apology against her skin. He eased his cock into her again, and her only sounds came from her rising breath.

And yet the girl refused to close her eyes. While he remained aroused by the beauty and willingness of her firm young body, he could not help but feel unpleasantly distracted. The reason fell upon him with the weight of stones; her eyes were Catelyn Stark's eyes, silently condemning him for failing to bring her daughter home. With each thrust, each light sigh from Sansa, all he heard, all he saw in her beautiful blue gaze: _Oathbreaker, Oathbreaker._

He withdrew from her, sat up on his heels. "On your hands and knees," he rasped, his throat thick with both shame and want. She blinked rapidly, but did as she was told. He wrapped his right arm around her waist- she gasped at the pressure of his metal hand against the delicate skin- and dipped the left hand between her legs to rub her again.

The sounds she made were so like Cersei's- he constantly had to remind himself to move slowly, lest he lapse into the fast, desperate rhythm he and his sister preferred. Eventually, he buried his face in her thick curtain of ruby-dark hair, breathed her fragrance, the scent that was entirely Sansa's own. She smelled herbal, floral, distinctly southron- but then there was something beneath, something he only remembered from the woods outside Winterfell- a crisp, wild fragrance that belonged wholly to the North.  _Still the little wolf girl, whatever they've done to you._

And then, ridiculously, a wave of possibility- _there's still time, save Brienne I'm all that's left to care, I can help you I can help you and protect you and take root in you before they cut you down..._

Jaime came with a low, loud moan, emptying himself in her and letting his thoughts scatter away before he had time to reflect on how foolish they were. Sansa dropped her body forward, resting their weight on her forearms. He continued to lean over her, pressing warm kisses to each bump in her spine. At the last, he nestled his face into the join of her neck and collarbone- he thought he may have said her name, just a light exhalation of breath. She did not turn her head, but he felt a light pressure on his left hand; her littlest finger, resting atop his knuckles.

When he did finally move away from Sansa, allowing the girl to curl into a ball on her side, he glanced down at the sheets, where the joining of their bodies had been. He heaved a deep sigh of relief to find them clean.


	6. Chapter 6

_It would be so easy._

The window faced east; while the other side of the castle would still be in darkness, the earliest light of morning trickled into the bedchamber, painting the walls in streaks of orange and gold. Lady Sansa Lannister blinked the crust of sleep from her eyes, squinting against the sudden brightness. The sunlight found a focal point on a dagger mounted on the wall. Sansa let her gaze wander over the intricate carving of the scabbard, the ornate bracket that affixed the weapon to the stones. _The knife is loose in the scabbard- I could pull it out quick as lightning._ Of course, she'd have to slip from the bed and cross the floor to reach it- _I can be quiet. I'm very good at being quiet._

She shifted a bit beneath the coverlet until she faced the man lying beside her. Jaime Lannister- _my husband-_ looked younger in sleep, his beautiful face peaceful, his fair hair and beard shining in the dawn. Sansa's eyes trailed down to his exposed neck- _there it is._ Light as could be, she brushed her fingertip over the large vein. _One quick, clean cut, and that would be the end._ She closed her eyes and imagined it: her white skin coated in blood of Lannister scarlet, the breath exiting his body, Cersei's horror-stricken face, coming upon the lifeless form of her golden twin... _And me? Oh, they'd hunt me down, likely burn me alive as the Mad King would, but it would be an honorable death, blood will have paid for blood..._

A visceral shudder shook her body as the images flashed through her mind. She gave a little squeak of surprise when Jaime responded to the movement, drawing her closer until her head rested just below his chin. He murmured something into her hair- a soft, sibilant sound that may have been a name, perhaps her own. Sansa lay still, barely daring to breathe, but she couldn't restrain a little quiver when he rested his left hand on her bare breast. In spite of the uncomfortable aching between her legs, she felt rather flushed when she recalled the events of the night before.

He had tried to be gentle, that much she understood. She even felt the urge to giggle when she recalled the feeling of his lips and tongue on her sex, when she recalled the warm tingling in her lower belly. But while he may have taken her maidenhead as carefully as he could, Sansa felt no tenderness toward this man to whom she'd been given. She looked back at the knife, then again at Jaime's still face. He looked enough like Joffrey, looked more than enough like Cersei, that she could still summon up the proper contempt.

And yet she knew that she would never do it. The knowledge settled upon her like a cold sheen of sweat, and her dry mouth filled with a bitter-sour tang- the taste of defeat. She'd felt this before, only days ago, when she realized that the Lannisters would never relinquish their hold on her. She may have escaped Joffrey, been released from Tyrion, but now they were just passing her off to another of their own, tasking him with the responsibility of filling her womb with a golden-haired, green-eyed brat, shackling her to them until the day she died. And when she considered everything, absolutely confirmed that there was no one left in the world to care for her well-being, the answer seemed laughably simple.

She made the attempt the next day: a bad half-hour standing on the roof of a tower, one hand clinging to the windowframe, one foot hovering over the edge. The sun glinted off of the stony ledge- she suddenly remembered Bran, the way he would leap from rooftop to rooftop as though carried aloft by the wind. His balance, so unerring that he could walk a ridgepole from one end to the other without so much as a waver. She wondered how many steps she could manage before tumbling down- two, maybe three? And then she looked down over the edge at the stone floor of the courtyard below. Deep breaths in and out as she visualized her body plummeting through the air, her skin and bones pulverized on impact, her skull bursting open like a gourd. Her vision blurred, her head reeled, and she angled her body back into the window. _I am afraid to die, afraid of the pain._ The thought was so fundamental and humbling that she quite lost her breath. She could not do it, could not take her own life- not out of love for others nor any moral objection, but out of pure, selfish, unshakable fear.

And this same fear would keep her from pulling the knife from the wall, would keep her from doing her part to avenge her family's deaths at the hands of the Lannisters. Sansa began to shiver in earnest, wrapping the coverlet tight around her and pressing her body flush against Jaime's. _I was never the brave one. Robb was brave, and Jon and Arya...but I'm naught but a craven. I cowered before Joffrey, I did not speak for Tyrion, I let them rope me into another Lannister marriage._

 _I am the last of the Starks, but the one least worthy of survival._

She started to cry then, for the first time since the announcement of her betrothal. All of the defiant energy that had sustained her up until this point exited with the tears, with the hard, cold realization that she'd lost- lost without even presenting much of a fight.

Here in bed with her husband, her limbs entangled with his, his heartbeat echoing against her ear, Sansa felt that she'd never been more alone in all her life.

Jaime stirred, his emerald eyes fluttering open, and Sansa hastened to wipe the tears from her cheeks, clearing her throat and nasal passage with a loud sniff. She felt him against her leg, half-hard already, and despite her instinct to recoil, she shifted her weight until her thighs rested on either side of his hips. A pulse throbbed between her legs, but she steeled herself nonetheless, hoping it would be over quickly.

Although his grasp grew firmer on her breast, Jaime made no attempt to enter her. He only darted his gaze about, eventually letting it rest on her face. "Good morning, Sansa," he whispered, placing his golden hand on her hair. It bumped against the tender skin of her scalp with more force than he probably intended; she winced, only slightly.

"Good morning," she mouthed, breath still bated. Jaime moved his left hand from her breast, lifted it to hover over her face, where she could feel a streak of moisture that she'd neglected to clear away. She met his eyes and felt both perplexed and terribly vulnerable when faced with the surprising kindness she found there. He barely rested the pad of his thumb on her cheek, but withdrew from her before wiping the tear away. With a light, careless kiss to the top of her head, he slid from the bed and retreated into his dressing chamber.

Sansa nestled herself into the warm imprint in the mattress where Jaime had been, a prickling sort of anxiety competing with the gnawing emptiness within her. Her husband quickly re-emerged, clad in training garb, and Sansa, suddenly very aware of her own nakedness, pulled the bedclothes tighter around her body.

"I'll be out in the yards. It is very early yet- you should try to sleep." Astonished, relieved, almost disappointed, Sansa could do nothing but nod. Jaime moved to the side of the bed to retrieve his sword- he paused for a moment, as though deliberating whether to touch her, but then pivoted on his heel and walked toward the door.

"I shall be back to collect you in a few hours- the King and Queen expect us to break our fast with them." Sansa nodded again, her mouth slightly ajar, knowing that she surely looked like a simpleton. Jaime's lips curved up into a vague smile, and he bowed his head to her before exiting.

She tried to take his advice and return to sleep, but her erratic lapses into slumber were fitful and disturbing. Images assaulted her with no particular narrative or priority- her body tumbling out of the window, the knife at Jaime's throat, Joffrey's cruel smile as he watched his Kingsguard beat her, Cersei's silver filigree ring, the Hound's mangled face hovering over her in the dark, Jaime's bare skin shining golden in the candlelight, her father's head on a spike-

She awoke with a high-pitched shriek, only to discover that she had company. A pair of dressing maids bustled about the large chamber, arms filled with silks, brocade and jewels. She recognized them both from the Queen Regent's staff- older women both, and exceptionally stern.

"My lady," the taller one- _Elspeth, maybe?_ \- began, "we have been sent to ready you to dine with the King and Queen."

"Oh," Sansa breathed. She slowly rose to her feet, still clinging to the bedsheet that covered her. The smaller woman quickly handed her a satin chemise and drawers, and the two maids politely averted their eyes until she put them on.

They drew her into a second dressing chamber off of the main room, pulled and prodded at her with a no-nonsense, brusque demeanor, one that had obviously been a key factor in Cersei's decision to send these particular women. But the Queen Regent needn't have worried; Sansa, still mired in thoughts of resignation, did nothing to interfere with their handiwork.

She first found herself laced into a rather ostentatious confection of maroon and gold, but the maids soon shook their heads in tandem, one clucking her tongue in disapproval. A quick glance at the looking glass told Sansa why; a small purple bruise on the top of her right breast, barely peeking out over the lavishly embroidered neckline. She blushed furiously, prompting the following comment from the short, plump maid (whose name she guessed might be something like Joleyne, but she honestly wouldn't swear to it): "By the Seven, Lady Sansa, you're red as a poppy. It isn't at all flattering with your hair."

Sansa gritted her teeth but said nothing. Once maybe-Elspeth and maybe-Joleyne changed her into a more modest gown of green and silver, they plaited her hair atop her head and tied a heavy collar of jewels around her neck, one that she was sure she'd seen Cersei wear before. Her heart sank into her stomach when she saw her finished reflection in the mirror- a proper southron lady, through and through.

Jaime arrived for her shortly after, just as he said he would. He'd been cleanly scrubbed and clad in finery, and she felt a little prickle of goosebumps at the sight of him.

He stepped into the light of the doorway, his eyes looking her up and down in obvious appraisal. He shook his head, then spoke quietly: "No, this won't do at all."

She felt her cheeks burning once again- heard the tongue-clicking from those damnable dressing maids- but before she could speak, Jaime reached his left hand behind her neck and untied the ribbon that fastened the jeweled collar. She sighed in relief as its weight lifted. Jaime tossed the necklace on the bed, then turned to regard her once more. Slowly, deliberately, he slipped his hand into her intricately-styled hair, pulling the pins out one by one and letting them drop to the floor. His fingers combed through the braids until her thick waves of russet hair tumbled about her shoulders. At the last, he stroked his fingertips over her brow, his voice barely above a whisper: "Much better."

Something stirred in the cavernous expanse inside, a spark of energy that she did not understand. Blue eyes locked on green, a flinty flicker passing from one gaze to the other. And though it had been so long that her facial muscles felt stiff from disuse, Sansa smiled.


	7. Chapter 7

Sansa flew into the Queen’s sitting room nearly an hour late, immediately dipping into a low curtsy and making her apologies to Margaery.  The Tyrell girl replied with a magnanimous smile and a delicate white hand on Sansa’s ruddy head.  “No apologies are necessary, my lady aunt.  I am pleased that you could join us.”  Cersei watched her goodsister flinch at Margaery’s touch, watched her eyes darken at being addressed as “aunt” by a girl three years her senior.  She felt a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth, but it quickly faded when Sansa rose, giving the Queen Regent a full view of her attire. 

  
 _Grey linen and loose hair, as though she plans to take septa’s vows later this afternoon._ Cersei opened her mouth to comment on the ridiculously austere clothing, but ultimately refrained.  _She does it just to bother me- mentioning it will only goad her on, the little wretch._ She instead rose from her chair, kissed the girl on the cheek, and gestured to the chair beside her.  “Please sit, little sister.”

 

Cersei watched out of the corner of her eye as Sansa lowered herself into the chair and accepted the sewing materials handed to her by a nearby maidservant.  Under closer examination, she noticed the flush in the young woman’s cheeks, the quickness of her breath, the silver circlet atop her head tilted slightly askew.  She reached behind the Stark girl under the guise of replacing her thimble, swept her eyes over Sansa’s neck and collarbone- _there._ Just beneath her ear, nearly concealed by the loose-hanging hair, a fresh love bite bright pink against her white skin. 

 

She felt her throat go dry and her heartbeat quicken.  A sudden burst of pain, nearly enough to make her cry out; she’d plunged her needle into her left index finger.  Scarlet blood leaked out onto the scalloped edges of the table covering she’d been embroidering.  She continued to watch the droplet’s progress along the white silk piping as she spoke in a tone low and quiet:  “It is not like you to lose track of time, Sansa.”

 

 _Red as a pomegranate._ Margaery’s insipid little maidens began to twitter at the violent blush, but Sansa failed to acknowledge them, focusing her eyes on Cersei instead.  __

“There is no excuse, your Grace” was her contrite reply. 

 

A bright laugh behind her plucked at Cersei’s already-delicate nerves, and Lady Leonette trilled blithely, “Oh, Your Grace, surely you recall what it was like to be a newlywed?  I don’t believe that anyone at Highgarden caught sight of me for a week after I married Garlan.”  The girls of the Maidenvault dissolved into giggles again, and even a few of the matrons chuckled under their breaths. 

 

Cersei did not laugh, and neither did Sansa.

 

But Leonette wasn’t through.  “Really, Sansa, it’s quite generous of Lord Jaime, letting you go for long enough to tell us all about it.” 

 

Had she not observed it with her own eyes, Cersei wouldn’t believe it possible, but Sansa somehow managed to blush even deeper, until her skin adopted a shade that the Queen Regent had only seen before on choking victims.  The ladies began to echo Leonette’s sentiments, and there was something ugly and wanton about their keen interest.  Cersei had long ago grown accustomed to the way women reacted to Jaime- she felt proud, even, watching them swoon and sigh over her beautiful, golden, thoroughly unattainable brother.  But it felt different now- now that Jaime was maimed, stripped of his shining white cloak, wedded outside the family- _not so unattainable anymore._ Self-satisfaction battled with an acute sense of loss, driving her to distraction.

 

Eventually, Margaery shook her head, glancing uncomfortably in Cersei’s direction.  “Let her be, ladies.  You needn’t tell them anything, Sansa.  Besides, I’m sure Her Grace would rather not hear such things of her own brother.”

 

Were Cersei a less observant woman, she might have missed the sharp flicker in Margaery’s lovely brown eyes and the subtle curl of her lips.  As it was, the Queen Regent straightened her posture, offering her good-daughter a saccharine smile. 

 

“Come now, dear Margaery, you mustn’t think me so humorless as all that.  You have brothers yourself- surely you don’t take offense at every bit of gossip you hear about them?”  Margaery’s smile faded and Cersei’s widened in perfect synchronicity.  The Queen effectively silenced, Cersei returned her attention to Sansa.  “You may speak.  Although you may wish to consider that most of these ladies are maidens- do try to spare their delicacy.”

 

Another laughing fit from Margaery’s retinue of idiots- Cersei wondered whether she herself had ever been so frivolously vacant.  _Surely not._

 

But one glance over to Sansa, and Cersei felt amply rewarded for tolerating the girlish stupidity.  The hideous redness in her face persisted, accompanied by a matching rash on her neck and collarbone. The Northern girl’s glacial poise disintegrated, replaced by darting eyes and stammering protests.  But the ladies of the court were waiting, breaths bated- even Margaery’s mouth hung slightly ajar. 

 

Cersei placed a hand on Sansa’s knee.  “Have you really nothing to tell?  That says very little for my brother, doesn’t it?” 

 

Sansa looked up then, and Cersei felt vaguely disappointed by the absence of tears.  "I...I don't know what to say..." Her voice was small, so pitiably small- for a single, terrifying, exhilarating moment, Cersei wondered whether Jaime had treated her brutally, whether her experience had been something akin to rape.

But then the girl inhaled, exhaled, continued.  “He is...gentle.  And patient.  He tries not to hurt me.”  She had the room in silent thrall.  “He always wears the golden hand- I think he worries that I’ll be frightened otherwise.  And then when..it’s through...he holds me until he falls asleep.” 

 

Clearly through, Sansa looked back down at her sewing.  The ladies in the room responded equally with rapturous sighs and clucks of disappointment. 

 

Cersei continued to watch as the color settled in Sansa’s cheeks, the panic draining away, replaced by her usual stillness.  A sudden jerk of a muscle reminded the Queen Regent that she still had her hand on Sansa’s knee.  She gave it a brief squeeze- made sure to sink her nails into the soft skin- before releasing. 

 

Though the morning continued as uneventfully as usual, Cersei’s heartbeat never slowed.  She gradually noticed a pulse forming in her pricked finger, throbbing away in perfect time.

 

...

 

She stole through the corridors with a speed that could come only from practice.  No candle, no torch- she knew these halls well enough to keep to the darkness.  The stone floors felt bracingly cold under her bare feet.  Before pushing open the large wooden door, Cersei lowered the shawl from her head, exposing her golden hair.

 

Moonlight spilled in through the window casement, illuminating the figures in the bed.  Sansa on her side, curved into herself, a soft cloud of hair all around her.  A well-muscled arm curled around her hip, a flesh-and-blood hand resting on her thigh.  Both the gold of Jaime’s hair and the gold of his false hand floated in the auburn sea- light against dark, sun against flame. 

 

A step closer, and Jaime abruptly woke, the coverlets falling from his bare torso as he sat up straight, his muscles at attention.  She spoke not a word.  Green eyes met green eyes, and he relaxed ever so slightly.

 

“Are you mad?”  He kept his voice at a whisper, but Cersei thought that he needn’t have bothered- Sansa’s only movement came from the rise and fall of her chest with each breath.

 

“I suppose that depends on who you ask,” Cersei quipped.  She crossed to the bed, her eyes never leaving her twin’s.  Jaime moved his hand from Sansa’s hip, but otherwise remained perfectly still.  The space between Sansa’s body and the edge of the bed was small, but Cersei nestled in all the same, half-curling herself around the sleeping girl. 

 

Jaime still didn’t move.  His twin began to card her fingers through Sansa’s thick hair, but even the pulling failed to rouse her.  “She sleeps soundly,” Cersei commented. 

 

She allowed herself a tiny smile of victory when Jaime shifted his shoulders and shook his head.  “She takes a dram,” he murmured.  “Pycelle makes it for her.  He tells me that without it, she’d never sleep through the night.”

 

“Sweet of you, to take such an interest.”  She swept her hand over Sansa’s brow, rubbing the backs of her knuckles over the soft, smooth skin. 

 

“I thought it might be...something else.” 

 

Jaime’s eyes darkened, and Cersei replied with a startled blink.  She lowered her stare to the girl’s face, so impossibly innocent- she had a fist closed around the wool blanket, her face rubbed against it...Cersei felt a tiny pang of sadness when she noticed a corner of the fabric in Sansa’s mouth.  _Would she ever have the nerve, could enough steel run through her blood, to kill a child in the womb?_

 

As she watched Sansa, Cersei took notice of the nightshift she wore.  It was a laughably childish confection- white, with lace and ribbons up to her neck, the hemline falling well below her knees.  She lowered her hand from the girl’s face and allowed it to roam over her body, her palm tracing the curve of Sansa’s hip.  The thin fabric revealed an absence of smallclothes; she plucked at the fabric between Sansa’s thighs, discovered that it stuck to her skin.

 

Her mouth went dry as she imagined it.  Had Jaime sat her down on his cock, touching her through the ruffles and bows of that little-girl nightdress?  Or did she lie on her side as she was doing now, suckling the edge of her blanket, barely aware of Jaime’s hips pistoning against her as Pycelle’s dram lulled her to sleep? 

 

She’d worked her hand under the hem, fingers barely brushing against the sticky crust on the insides of Sansa’s thighs.  A sharp intake of breath distracted her from her thoughts, and she glanced up to look at Jaime. 

 

He watched her hand’s progress beneath Sansa’s dress, his lips slightly parted.  Cersei glanced up and over and smiled again at the sight of bedlinens tented in her brother’s lap. 

 

“Why are you here?”  His whisper startled her; her finger pressed harder against Sansa’s skin, and the girl gave a little squirm.

 

And then she reached across Sansa’s body to cup Jaime’s cheek in her palm.  She felt a prickle of distaste at the roughness of his beard, but set it aside.  She answered his question in an unusual flash of honesty:  “I don’t know.”

 

The film from between Sansa’s legs still lingered on her index finger; she drew the tip over his lower lip and delighted in the sudden quivering of her body when met with the desire in his eyes.  She rose up on her knees- Sansa still pressed between them, her body soft against the tautened muscles of Cersei’s legs- and framed Jaime’s face with her other hand. 

 

“Jaime,” she breathed, her thumbs smoothing rhythmically over his cheekbones.  And then she waited, waited for him to seize her face and kiss her, waited for him to pull her onto his lap and tear her gown open. 

 

But he did not.  And with a heavy, sinking sense of finality, she knew that he never would again.  Perhaps if she leaned into him, he would respond in kind- but whether from anger or disgust or pride, Cersei did not and would not.

 

Instead, she leaned over Sansa Stark, smoothed a tangle of ruddy hair behind her ear, and kissed her temple.  As she slipped from the bed and moved toward the door, Cersei wanted nothing more than to meet Jaime’s eyes, to find him as lost as she- she felt him watching her, all it would take was a little turn of the head- but she kept her gaze trained on the door.

 

When she stepped into the corridor and eased the door shut, she allowed herself one last glance through the crack at the doorframe.  Sansa shifted beneath her woolen blanket, muttered something unintelligible.  She heard Jaime whisper to her- what, she couldn’t tell- and watched him pull her until her head rested on his chest, dropping a light kiss on her lips before resting his cheek against her hair. 

 

As she made her way back to her chambers, heartbeat still pounding in her chest, head and left finger, Cersei reminded herself to ask Pycelle in the morning for a sleeping dram of her own.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

"Look at these jolly little fellows!"

At the sound of Sansa's voice, King Tommen glanced upward, round green eyes shining with delight. He sat cross-legged on the floor of a long-forgotten study; Sansa thought idly that his mother would be furious when she caught sight of his brocade overcoat, trimmed with dust. She dropped to her knees beside the boy and smiled at the squirming, furry mass in his lap.

"They're not all fellows- there are some girls, too." Tommen lifted a kitten from the center of the huddle and placed it on Sansa's spread skirt. "Like this one."

She brushed her fingertips over the soft fur, as downy and grey as Lady's was when Father first brought her home. The hard stone of melancholy lodged permanently in her stomach gave a little lurch- she pressed the kitten to her cheek and breathed a sigh before asking, "Where did you get them?"

"From Marg- from my lady wife." Sansa winced at that- the idea of this plump little lad as a married man never ceased to be both revolting and laughable.  _By the Seven, the top of his head barely reaches Margaery's chest._ She wondered for a moment whether people felt the same about her marriage before realizing the foolishness of the comparison.  _Tommen is a child, and I'm quite nearly grown. Never mind that my husband is old enough to be my father- no one thinks a thing of it._

Of course, that wasn't strictly true. A week prior, they'd received a visit from Jaime's aunt Genna, blessedly without her Frey husband. Sansa had been torn between her blistering hatred for anything connected with the Frey family and her curiosity about the full-figured, blowsy woman who contrasted so sharply with her brother's icy reticence- she positioned herself until she nearly hid behind Jaime, saying little and eating little. Eventually, Genna Lannister turned her emerald eyes on Sansa and beckoned to her.

"This is the bride? Let's have a look, then." She felt Jaime's golden hand on the small of her back, nudging her forward, and she reluctantly approached and dropped into a curtsy. "My lady aunt."

And then Genna laughed, this time with exasperation, before turning to her brother. "Tywin, have you gone mad? This is a little girl."

"She's a woman flowered, Aunt," Cersei offered, and Sansa willed herself to keep from looking the Queen Regent in the eye, knowing what she'd find there.

"A girl," Genna repeated. She tilted her silver-gold head and swept her gaze over Sansa's body. "A beauty, though. You favor your mother, my dear." At the mention of her mother, Sansa bit her lip, but quickly realized how that emphasized her childishness. And indeed, Genna immediately began to shake her head, directing her next words to her nephew.

"Jaime. I hope you've at least kept separate beds...it's indecent, otherwise."

No one spoke a word. Genna sighed, leaned back in her chair, and Sansa wished, as she had so many times before, that she were dead.

For two nights after that, Jaime slept in his solar.

A restless mewling from the kitten broke Sansa's reverie. She lowered it to her knee and continued to stroke its soft fur before asking Tommen, "Have you named them all yet?"

"No," he replied. "I'm still deciding. Have you any ideas?"

"I'll think on it," she laughed. Cradling the kitten in one hand, she reached the other into the folds of her shawl. "I made something for you."

Tommen watched as she withdrew a small model of a bird, intricately folded from a slip of parchment. Sansa flung the bird into the air and smiled when its wings appeared to flutter of their own accord, holding it aloft as it sailed across the room.

The King gave a sigh of astonishment. "Where did you learn to do that?" he breathed.

"In Winterfell, when I was very young," Sansa replied. It had been Uncle Benjen, visiting from the Wall, who'd dazzled Sansa and Arya with his flying parchment birds. The girls demanded to learn the craft, and in a brief period of camaraderie, she and Arya had driven Maester Luwin to distraction by pilfering every parchment they could find, filling the halls of Winterfell with their flock. Another stomach lurch, and she forced herself to focus on Tommen's smiling face. "I'll teach you one day, if you'd like to learn."

The boy nodded before gently placing his kittens in a wooden box. "How far can it fly?"

She felt her face brighten with a mischievous grin. "Let's see, shall we?" Depositing her kitten in the box, she retrieved the bird and gestured to Tommen to follow her out into the corridor. "Throw it as straight as you can," she instructed.

King Tommen Baratheon and Lady Sansa Lannister gave a collective gasp of delight when the bird flew down the long hallway and seamlessly turned a corner. Tommen raced down the hall after it, and Sansa lifted her skirts to her knees and dashed after him. The bird maintained its momentum, flapping away as if propelled by magic- until a door swung open, trapping the folded parchment against the wall.

An indignant squeal, and Tommen stomped toward the figure in the doorway. "Uncle Jaime! You broke it."

Jaime released the door, enabling Tommen to retrieve the crushed bird. "Many apologies, Your Grace," he murmured, his tone quiet and grave.

Sansa stepped to the King, shaking her head, and cupped her hands. "Let me see it." After Tommen dropped the bird into her palms, she smoothed, refolded, tightened the creases. She handed it back to the King with a grin. "All better."

Jaime stood still in the doorway- she considered the solemnity of his voice, the heaviness of his facial expression, and then realized where he'd been; the door led to the dungeons where Tyrion was held.

She turned to Tommen, dropped into a half-curtsy. "If I have your leave, Your Grace." Tommen nodded, turning to scamper down a different hallway. But before he left, he called out: "Sansa! You mustn't forget to think of kitten names."

"I shan't, Your Grace," she shouted in reply before turning to Jaime, placing a hand gingerly on his arm.

He looked down at her, his eyes stormy and troubled, and she realized she had her answer even as she began to ask: "Did he...?"

"No."

Sansa knew better than to ask anything more. Jaime had been to see Tyrion over a dozen times since his arrest, but no matter what he said, no matter how he pleaded, the Imp had spoken not a word. Sansa knew what Jaime sought- a denial, an explanation, anything to confirm Tyrion's innocence. She'd heard the arguments behind closed doors, Cersei and Jaime screaming back and forth about Tyrion and Joffrey and the dungeon until Lord Tywin would interrupt in hushed tones and put an end to the shouting.

She wondered, sometimes, whether she should go to Tyrion. She who had seen it, she who knew at her core that the Imp was blameless...he might speak to her.  _But what good would it do? They'd never listen to me, anyhow._ Excuses, flimsy pardons that she'd repeat to herself to distract her from the real reason behind her failure to go to the dungeons.  _I'd never know where to start, what to say._

Jaime began to walk down the hall; Sansa, her hand still on his arm, was startled by the movement. She trotted along behind him for a few steps before matching his stride.

"I'm going to the training fields for the rest of the afternoon," he said without looking at her.

"With Ser Payne?" she inquired. Jaime shook his head, gave her a perfunctory glance.

"No. With Brienne."

Sansa gave a nod of silent comprehension. While Jaime's fights with Ser Ilyn Payne often resulted in scattered cuts and scrapes, his training with the Maid of Tarth was something else entirely. He'd return dented and bruised, black-and-blue splotches covering his arms, back and chest. She itched with curiosity, longed to ask why the Lady Brienne saw fit to fight him so fiercely, but she never quite worked up the nerve.

For she knew it to be purposeful, knew that Jaime welcomed, perhaps even solicited the pain- a strange sort of penance. The last time he'd been to see Tyrion, the last time he'd let Brienne brutalize him up and down the training field, he lay on his back in their bed that night, positioning her atop him. His eyes shadowed, his jaw set, he used his golden hand to grind her into his pelvis, the other hand guiding her fingers to his bruises, pressing her nails into his ravaged skin. He eventually sat up, brought his mouth to her ear, his whisper choked and desperate as he ordered her to bite his shoulder, pull his hair, rake her nails over his back again and again until she drew blood. Right before he reached his climax, he told her to hit him across the face- when she hesitated, he stopped, released his vise-like hold on her body, lowered his eyes and murmured a string of apologies. She'd felt him grow soft within her, and when he lifted her from his lap and turned to lie on his side, she'd been too overcome with confusion and concern and arousal to know what to do. So she turned her back to him, picking dried blood out from under her nails and waiting for her heartbeat to slow.

Her hand clenched on Jaime's arm as she remembered, and she blushed a bit at the quizzical look she received. Stepping away from her husband, Sansa started to turn on her heel. "Then I suppose I'll see you this evening," she said as flatly as she could.

As she retreated down the corridor, Jaime's voice called out to her: "Oh, I nearly forgot- my sister is looking for you."

She heaved a sigh, reached down to shake the dust and cat hair from her skirts- but then she stopped, allowing the grey particles to remain, stark against the pale yellow of her gown.

Before she turned the corner, she saw Jaime flash her a small smile.

 

...

 

Sansa pushed open the door to the bathing chamber, drunk on her own boldness... _among other things._ There had been a delivery to the castle that afternoon- several casks of Dornish wine, a fresh vintage. She'd spent the afternoon in the cellars with the Queen Regent, who insisted that they sample each barrel. In spite of her protests, her assertion that she really knew absolutely nothing about wine, Cersei had dragged her along, handing her glass after glass of red and gold liquid, watching her with those unblinking green eyes until she finished every drop. After a time, the two women grew quiet and drowsy, until their respective handmaidens ushered them off like children into their chambers. Sansa woke with a light aching in her head and the realization that she'd missed evening meal. She took a moment to orient herself, until it occurred to her to wonder where Jaime was.

He'd been training earlier- the baths were the obvious answer. She thought to simply ready herself for bed and take her draught- if Jaime came back or not, it would hardly matter in sleep. But some addled impulse propelled her to her feet and guided her across the castle, clad only in a loose linen robe.

The heavy steam in the room only added to the clouding in her head- a glint of gold in the haze alerted her to Jaime's location.

He hadn't noticed her yet. She leaned against a column and watched his chest rise and fall, watched his hard body glistening in the torchlight. Although she'd initially thought the dappling of his skin a result of the dim lighting, she quickly realized that he'd been every bit as battered as she might have expected. The golden hand rested on the floor outside the bath; overcome by curiosity, Sansa leaned closer, straining her neck in an effort to catch a glimpse of his naked right arm. The skin had grown over the space where his hand once was, the healing surprisingly smooth- her body tilted too far forward, and she let out a huff of breath when she nearly lost her footing.

Jaime twisted his neck to look in her direction, verdant eyes narrow. She took several sheepish steps into the light.

"My lady." He gave a courteous nod, offset somewhat by the perplexed knitting of his eyebrows. "I thought you'd already be abed."

Sansa reached into a fold of her robe and removed the little vial of potion. "I haven't taken it yet." Jaime nodded, and she continued forward until she stood at the very edge of the floor, the steam from the bath flowing freely into her lungs.

"I..." she began, looking down at her feet, "I was looking for you."

"Why?"

 _Why indeed?_ The reason felt too pathetic and desperate to put into words. She couldn't explain the gaping maw of nothingness, the solace that came even from the shallowness of skin upon skin. Even though she did not trust him, did not love him, hardly  _knew_ him, she wanted his heartbeat against her back, his arms around her, anything to anchor her to the earth.

She shrugged. As she lowered herself to sit on the edge of the bath , he reached behind him for the golden hand- she wanted to tell him to leave it, but he'd already affixed it to his right arm before she could speak a word. She felt his gaze upon her, but she focused her eyes on her bare feet swishing about in the warm water.

His hand closed around her ankle, and she gasped aloud. Her body buzzed with the wine and the steam and the close proximity- every pore in her skin cried out for contact, for the primal completion that would let her forget, however briefly, her incredible emptiness.

She pulled the loose robe over her head and braced her hand on Jaime's shoulder as she slid into the water. Her fingertip dug into the tender skin beneath a bruise; she froze for a moment, half-afraid that he'd ask her to hurt him again. But he only drew her between his legs, shifting their bodies until her back pressed against his chest.

His fingers traced the insides of her thighs, his lips brushed the side of her neck. A soft, low voice in her ear: "Tell me of your day with Cersei."

Immediately, she felt the strain of conflict forcing her lips into a frown. They'd taken this path before- one night, as they lay naked in bed, Jaime had asked her to recount her day in the Queen Regent's company. He pressed for details; what Cersei wore, what she said, what might have occurred to vex her. With each morsel of information, Jaime rewarded his wife with a kiss, a caress, moving down her body until his cheek rested on her hipbone. Then she began to tell of an insipid argument she'd had with her husband's sister- something so insignificant that she barely even recalled the particulars. And as she spoke, Jaime moved his head between her legs as he'd done on their wedding night, punctuating her every phrase with a lick or a suck until she trembled and broke beneath him.

But while she felt herself tingling with the memory of that intense pleasure, Sansa had misliked the gleam in his eyes, the quaking of his voice when he spoke his sister's name. And so she turned her head against his shoulder to face him, her tone nearly coquettish: "I'd rather have a story from you."

His chest rumbled with laughter before he answered, "What sort of story would you have from me?"

She had to think about that. She had no real wish to hear tales of battle- his recent history with her brother still smarted too sharply. She very much wished to hear about Brienne and his journey back from Riverrun, about this oath to her mother that he'd occasionally mention before hastening to change the subject- but her body felt too heavy, her head too muddled for a potentially contentious conversation.

After a moment, she settled upon a subject that she considered innocent enough: "About where you grew up. Tell me of Casterly Rock."

She reclined back against his body and closed her eyes. He spoke with more detail than she would have anticipated, describing the pebbly beaches, the secret caves, the lush gardens. The accounts of his boyhood explorations and adventures always involved the plural pronoun: "we" this, "we" that- a small discordance in the idyll.

Finally, he rested his chin on the top of her head, the warm skin of his left hand and the very warm metal of his right smoothing over her arms. "Well, I suppose you'll see it all for yourself soon, anyhow."

Sansa sat bolt upright. She swiveled her body until she faced him directly, her voice shaking as she asked, "What do you mean?"

Jaime blinked with bemusement before answering, "After the situation settles here, my father will remain in the Tower of the Hand, and you and I will go to Casterly Rock."

The hard stone of the bath steps ground against her kneecaps as she knelt between his legs, her hands on his shoulders. Her body sparked equally with elation and embarrassment that the thought had never occurred to her before. Yet she had to be sure- "We're leaving King's Landing."

"Yes." Jaime nodded with a half-smile, which grew into a full one when Sansa reached up to cup his face in her hands.

"Say it." She brought her face close to his; her skin prickled with goosebumps from anticipation and the sudden exposure to the air.

A tiny pressure on the back of her neck closed the gap between them until her forehead pressed flush against his. He repeated her words in a whisper: "We're leaving King's Landing."

  
Her mouth on his, her fingers in his hair, and she felt a weak, delicate, but undeniably-present tendril of something sprouting in the cavern within her, a prick of light in the darkness- were she still a dreamy girl who believed in songs, she might have called it hope.   



	9. Chapter 9

_He summoned her directly._ It took Jaime some time to parse through the audacity, the absolute impropriety of it all. As Sansa's husband, he should have been consulted first- but Lord Tywin's page relayed the news nearly as an afterthought, telling him more as a courtesy than as a necessity.

The anger dropped low in his stomach, churning and pulsing, the phantom fingers of his right hand prickling- he recognized it now as his body's natural reaction to frustrated helplessness. Never in his life had Jaime Lannister felt so consistently helpless as he had in these months since his return...

He insisted on accompanying her. She'd responded with typically adolescent indignation- blue eyes flashing, jaw set, insincere bravado in her every word: "I'm no child, I can go on my own," "I'm not afraid"-

He followed her into the Tower all the same.

Lord Tywin Lannister half-rose from his seat behind the long wooden table. Gold-green eyes blinked upon the entrance of his son, and he made no attempt to conceal the annoyance lurking beneath his courteous tone: "Thank you for delivering your wife to me, Jaime. Now leave us."

"I would prefer to stay, my lord." Jaime felt a current of heated challenge passing back and forth between himself and Lord Tywin; his father lifted his eyebrows, pursed his lips, and directed his attention to the girl standing before him.

"Lady Sansa. Please sit."

Sansa hesitated for a moment before lowering herself into the uncomfortable wooden chair opposite Lord Tywin. She planted her feet on the ground, straightened her back, folded her hands in her lap- only the gooseflesh on the back of her neck indicated her anxiety.

Several moments of silence passed before the King's Hand spoke again.

"Remind me...how many moons have passed since your wedding?"

A prickle of cold danced up Jaime's spine at that soft, deliberate, predatory tone. From his vantage point in the doorway, he could only see Sansa's face in profile- she clenched her jaw and surprised him with the sharpness of her voice:

"Which one, my lord?"

Lord Tywin narrowed his eyes, placed his palms flat on the table. "Don't toy with me, girl."

Sansa's hands shifted in her lap, and she inhaled through her nose. "Three."

"Thank you. Three."

Jaime grained forward with the intention of approaching the table, but something in his father's knife-sharp stare held him fast.

Lord Tywin continued: "I am told that you bled at the last moon. Is that correct?"

Sansa whipped her head around to look at Jaime, her cheeks stained vermilion.

"Do not look at him. Look at me."

Suddenly, a desperate gleam appeared in Sansa's eyes, begging for rescue- Jaime took a step in Lord Tywin's direction, shaking his golden head. "Father-"

"Silence." Menace seeped from every pore, and Jaime at once felt himself nine years old again.

Lord Tywin looked back at Sansa. "Before you answer, I would advise you not to waste my time with lies. If you lie to me, I will know, and your husband can tell you that I have little patience for falsehoods."

Sansa turned her face away from Jaime, but not before her eyes shadowed with a dark disappointment that made his stomach twist. He detected a little quaver in her voice when she replied,

"Yes."

"I see."

Jaime knew the reason for his father's keen interest, knew House Lannister's desperation for an appropriate heir- he wondered how closely Lord Tywin monitored Sansa, which of her handmaidens served as the liaison- the chill ran down his back again.

Lord Tywin leaned forward; the glint of firelight in his gold-flecked eyes gave him a serpentine look that was even more unsettling than his usual glowers. "You've been taking a sleeping draught. I'll have it from you now."

"My lord-" A ghostly pallor crept across Sansa's face when the nature of Lord Tywin's insinuation fell upon her. The abject horror of her expression clearly suggested that the idea had never before entered her mind- but it  _had_  entered Jaime's, and he felt a squelching sense of guilt working with the shame, provoking him nearly to nausea.

Lord Tywin extended his hand, palm facing upwards.

"Give it to me."

She hesitated, obviously waiting for Jaime to interject. And he knew, he knew that he should...but his mind immediately offered forth a plethora of excuses:  _it would do more harm than good, she'd look more suspicious, he'd believe that we're in league together, trying to deprive House Lannister of an heir..._

Finally, Sansa withdrew the vial with trembling hands and placed it on the table. Lord Tywin uncorked the tiny bottle, sniffed its contents, placed a drop on his fingertip and dabbed it on his tongue. Before Jaime could begin to properly wonder why his father knew the taste of moon tea, Lord Tywin resealed the bottle and slipped it into the folds of his own cloak.

"Sleeping potion or no, it is best to remain cautious. I'll have a word with Maester Pycelle, and you'll not take it again."

"But then...how will I sleep?" Sansa's posture had wilted considerably by this point; her fingers gripped the seat of the chair as she drew her shoulders inward, her body matching her tiny voice.

Tywin scoffed, waved a hand dismissively. "When you grow tired enough, you will sleep." He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands upon the table. "We do you a great honor, child- a traitor's daughter, chosen to bear the heir to Casterly Rock. You come from fertile stock, you have your health and youth, and I understand that your husband shares your bed with more than enough frequency"- Jaime and Sansa twitched in tandem- "I have no wish to have this conversation again three more moons from now. Am I making myself quite clear?"

Sansa pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes- Jaime recognized the sparks of defiance, had seen them directed, albeit rarely, toward himself and Cersei,  _but surely she doesn't think to try it here-_

And then she spoke, her tones crisp and clipped, and he felt his fears realized:

"And if never bear a child? What then?"

Jaime watched, at once mesmerized and horrified, as Lord Tywin's eyes blazed, then settled. He leaned in very slightly, looking into Sansa's eyes- not blinking, never blinking.

"That would be unfortunate. Because, of course, the Crown intends to restore your family's holdings to your second son- to give him Winterfell."

Lord Tywin paused, allowing the impact to settle upon Sansa. Eyes widened, breath faltered- he had her then.

His next words came barely above a whisper, coated with a supercilious sort of charm that Jaime had heard from Cersei before- he'd always wondered where she learned it, this cold, peculiar seductiveness. From his father, it felt alien and macabre- but he found himself as transfixed as Sansa when Lord Tywin uttered the simple sentence:

"You want to go home one day, Sansa, do you not?"

Sansa's breath hitched in her throat- a rasping, almost strangled sound. Stripped of her pertness, her anger, her reserve, she answered in a light exhale that was, perhaps, the most forlorn sound Jaime had ever heard:

"Yes."

Lord Tywin's lips flattened in as close to a smile as he ever deigned to give. "Then we understand each other." He did not rise to bid her farewell, merely turning back to the leatherbound ledger beside him. "That's all."

Sansa rose slowly from the chair, her breathing still uneven, a gleam in her eyes that could only be from tears. She all but shoved Jaime out of her way as she fled the chamber; he heard the heels of her shoes clacking aggressively down the stairs.

He remained in the doorway for a time, eyes focused on Lord Tywin, searching for a way to articulate his disgust- but his father never looked up from the ledger.

The sound of Sansa's steps began to fade away- he hastened down the stairs, called her name before reaching her on the landing-

She turned sharply to face him. The color rose in her cheeks, tendrils of fiery hair flew out around her face- she lifted a hand to rub the area under her reddened eyes, but the tear streaks remained.

Her breath grew labored as she obviously tried to keep from crying, her throat thick and her eyes naked with rage and despair: "Why did you not help me?"

Jaime forced himself to meet her gaze- blue, _blue like Catelyn Stark's, blue like Brienne's, pained and lost and Gods, she's only a little girl_ -

She continued, her voice low and flat, nearly monotonous: "Why did you come, if only to stand there in silence? I am your  _wife,_  but you let him speak to me like-" She wiped her nose on her sleeve, gave a loud sniff before she lowered her eyes to the floor and mumbled, "My father went to war with your family to protect my mother. But if you will not even..." She shook her head, dropped her volume even farther. "What use are you?"

Were he another sort of man- a man like Robert Baratheon, a man like Aerys Targaryen- Jaime would have slammed the back of his hand into her cheek with enough force to knock her flat. As it was, he felt suddenly defensive-  _it would be easier to go to war for you than to defy Tywin Lannister-_ He advanced on her, and she flattened her back against the wall, cringing as if anticipating a strike.

"That's enough," he hissed, his body close enough to cage her in.

Sansa's eyes winched shut, and she dropped her chin until it pressed into her collarbone. "Please," she whispered, and he abruptly recalled the crisscrossing of scars over her back, the discolored patches of skin that had yet to fully heal, all given to her by men who served under his command. But to think, to believe that he would ever _-_  the shaking, the tears, it was all too much- _I frighten her even now; the Lannister Lion-_

"Gods, Sansa." He placed his hand on her shoulder with excruciating gentleness; she flinched, kept her eyes focused on the floor. He watched as a tear flowed over the slope of her cheek and dropped onto the parapets beneath them.

Apology would be the obvious course of action, but what could he possibly say that would sound anything but hollow, that would elicit anything but disbelief?

He removed his hand from her shoulder, saddened by the immediate relaxation of her upper body.

She edged herself along the wall, moving toward the small gap at Jaime's side. "Let me go. Please, let me go."

And he did. He watched her slip away, darting down the corridor, the heavy braid thumping against her spine.

 

...

 

Jaime retired to his solar that night, head heavy with drink and distress, and had an unsettling dream.

 _Cersei in their bed again, golden curls tumbling over her shoulders, the curve of her breast visible beneath the thin fabric of her gown. Sansa's skirt pushed upward, revealing her nakedness below the waist- and then Cersei's long, elegant fingers, stroking between Sansa's legs, disappearing into her cunt. Sansa awoke, arched into Cersei's touch, uttered soft little sighs with each thrust. Cersei looked into Jaime's eyes- not blinking, never blinking- Gods, he hadn't been so hard in years..._

 _Sansa kept her gaze on the ceiling, breathing in out, in out. Jaime lay beside her, brushed his lips over her temple. On her other side, Cersei did the same- their hair enmeshed above her head, a coronet of gold-_

 _Cersei slipped her hand out of Sansa, entwined her fingers with Jaime's. Between the twins, Sansa remained perfectly still, her mouth shaping a whisper- "Let me go. Please, let me go."_

 _Her tears rolled down the side of her face and into Jaime's mouth- hot, salty, bitter._

 _He tightened his grip on Cersei's hand as he listened to Sansa repeat the words again and again, each time softer and sadder-_

Jaime awoke on the divan to the sensation of bare skin pressed against him. Sansa sat beside him, a bedlinen draped over her shoulders, her body silhouetted in the moonlight. Auburn hair curtained around her face, obscuring it completely, but the steady rise and fall of her chest with each breath assured him that she had stopped weeping, at least.

He debated whether to touch her, but she reached for him before he could decide. A tiny hand settled on his groin, and when she found him already hard- his face burned when he thought of the dream- she hooked her fingers into his smallclothes and pulled them down past his knees.

Her unusual forwardness alarmed him, but not half so powerfully as the gnawing guilt, the knowledge that he had to try, empty as the words might sound-

"Sansa. I'm sorry."

She leaned over him, hands on either side of his torso, loose hair grazing over his chest and stomach.

Her face remained in darkness when she said, "I know."

She shifted to straddle his stomach, placed a palm flat on his heart center. "Do you  _want_ to protect me? "

His heart jolted beneath her hand, his breath tight. In spite of the aching in his cock, he tried to ease her off of him, speaking through clenched teeth:

"You should try to sleep, my lady."

But she held firm, hands flying to his shoulders and pushing him into the cushions of the divan. Her voice trembled as she repeated the question, as though she feared the answer:

"Do you?"

And for the sake of the promise he'd made, for the sake of the thoughtful blue-eyed girl who shared his name and his bed, for the sake of the honor that might not be wholly past redemption-

"Yes."

She bent her elbows until her face hovered a hairsbreadth from his.

"Two sons. One for Casterly Rock, one for Winterfell."

He gripped her hips and sat her down, let her dictate the rhythm. His head fell back, and he gazed up at the shadows moving across the ceiling.

As her breath rose, he imagined that she whispered the words, filled the air with the plea:

 _Let me go, let me go._


	10. Chapter 10

She was making a fool of herself- that much was apparent. Though others certainly seemed to believe otherwise, Sansa was entirely aware of the pitying gazes, the condescending sighs, the mocking smirks. And it was ridiculous, of course it was ridiculous. Over three months, no sign of anything, and yet the little trunk that she used to store her sewing projects nearly overflowed with baby blankets and swaddling clothes.

But she could not bring herself to care. Because for the first time in such a long time, Sansa remembered what it was like to have a dream.

She hadn't conceived once in the time since she'd been married, but surely there was nothing to fear. Her womb was just resisting, being temperamental- it would come around. She found herself whispering to her belly sometimes, as though her womb were sentient, trying to coax and persuade it to yield fruit. During these times, her maidservants would let her be, exasperated smiles spread across their faces as they exited. Even Shae, who rarely left her side, would disappear behind the door- but her smile was kind, at least.

Sansa daydreamed, something she'd hardly done since arriving in King's Landing, something she didn't realize she knew how to do anymore. She'd taken to spending her afternoons away from the sewing room, away from Margaery's maidens and their giggling, away from Cersei's withering stares. Instead, she perched herself on the wide sill of a large window toward the rear of the castle- a warm, quiet, lazy spot where she could stitch and imagine in peace. Sometimes she'd be joined by her favorite of Tommen's kittens- the little grey one called North Star. She'd chosen the name.

All she thought about, repeated to herself over and over- Winterfell, North, home. And with that idea, of course, came the thoughts of her children. The firstborn remained rather vague in her mind- just a blur of gold and green, the sacrifice she'd leave for the Lannisters to raise in Casterly Rock. They'd give him some fool Lannister name- "Ty" something or other, probably... _although if they so much as_ _ **suggest**_ _Tywin, I'll be sick all over._

She remembered the dreams she'd had during her betrothal to Joffrey, a lifetime ago- dreams of a litter of light-haired babes, all with the Lannister look. The thought curled her lips now, halfway between a smile and a snarl.

But the second child...the second, her saving grace, her little winter prince. She imagined him with dark hair and eyes, like her father's-  _unlikely, as my hair is the lightest shade of auburn and everyone in Jaime's family has been fair for generations, but I don't care._ Although she knew she'd never be allowed to call him for her father or her eldest brother-  _traitors, both -_ he'd have a good Stark name all the same- Rickard, maybe, or Brandon.

As she sewed blankets and baby clothes, she realized that everything was grey and white, occasionally Tully blue- all gifts for little Rickard-or-Brandon. She began to feel a bit guilty and sorry for Ty-something-or-other, so she stitched one blanket of Lannister crimson, with a lion emblazoned over the front. She placed it at the bottom of the trunk and gathered more materials in the Stark colors.

Her happy window-dreams grew more fanciful as the days passed. Once she had the first birth over and done, she imagined that her womb would be willing and ready to bear more children, and more and more. She'd leave Casterly Rock its heir, then go to Winterfell with her northern son, where she'd rule until he came of age. And she'd have others, more beautiful babies with alternating dark and red hair-  _the Lannisters will have their golden son, they need no more-_ children that she'd keep around her, that she'd teach to be better and wiser and braver than herself. As soon as one was weaned, she'd go to Casterly Rock- or Jaime would come to Winterfell, she wasn't quite sure about the particulars- until she grew large with child again.  _I'll have a dozen babies, and I'll teach them to become part of the North, and they'll know nothing of the South and what happens to people there._ She'd breed a new generation of Starks to replace the one she'd lost-  _like the Earth Mother of Old Nan's stories, bringing forth child after child, giving each a piece of the land to claim and grow and nurture. They will be mine- not Jaime's, not Lord Tywin's-_ _ **mine.**_

Of course, logic would eventually buzz in her ear like a gnat, pricking holes at her dreams until her cheeks flushed with embarrassment at her own foolishness. But still, it was a goal, something to hope for and work toward. And for a girl with no family and no friends and no future, that was quite enough.

 _I can't be barren,_ she told herself again and again. After all, her mother had borne five healthy children, the Tully and Stark women had a strong history of fertility-  _the gods can't be so cruel, not when I need this so badly._ Of course, she then remembered that the gods had thought nothing of tearing her family to pieces, killing her mother, father and brothers, scattering her sister into the winds, letting her be sold like chattel from one Lannister to another- and then she'd fall once more into despair.

Since the Seven had done so little to answer her prayers, Sansa tried appealing to the Old Gods. There were no weirwoods to be found in this southron climate, so she settled for a gnarled oak tree at the edge of the most distant courtyard. Using a dagger that she'd swiped from Jaime's armory, she made an even cut along the fingertips of her left hand and used the free-flowing blood to stain the bark of the tree, until the streaks almost resembled the red "tears" of the heart trees. She wiped her fingers clean on the black fabric of her dress, knelt on the ground, and tried to remember how Father and Jon and Robb would pray back in Winterfell, the prayers of silent contemplation.

But the ground was nowhere near as cold; the dirt seeped into the cloth of her skirt instead of remaining firm and solid as it would in the North. She looked up at her false weirwood, painted with her own blood- and though she'd never seen her father or brothers do anything of the sort, she crawled to the roots and wrapped her arms around the trunk, pressing her cheek to the rough bark.

Sansa closed her eyes and listened. Father used to tell them that the heart trees could talk- but this southron tree said nothing at all.

"Can it be any tree, then?" The voice startled her, and she turned her face so sharply that the bark scraped against her cheek- she felt a warm rivulet of blood trickle down over her jaw.

Jaime leaned against an oak several paces away from her, the sunlight reflecting splendidly off of his pale head and white tunic. He made a pretty picture with his windswept hair and eyes the color of the leaves surrounding him, with his upright posture and broad shoulders.

(A night, not long ago, when they'd both had too much wine and all but stumbled back to their quarters, he'd called her beautiful for the first time- she couldn't decide how to respond until he asked whether she found him handsome- he phrased the question as a joke, twisting his lips into a smirk, but she saw a genuine flash of need in his eyes- she'd only laughed, smoothed his hair back from his brow- "I think my lord knows what he looks like." He bedded her hard and fast, and when it was through, she murmured something into the crook of his neck, something so stupid that she hated herself the minute the words left her mouth- she told him that he looked like the knight she'd always dreamed of as a girl in Winterfell. She blushed and hid her face, he smiled and kissed her, but his eyes grew dark- dark, and infinitely sad.)

She brushed the back of her hand over the blood on her cheek before shaking her head. "No, it can't. I just thought I'd try." T _here is nothing I wouldn't try._

Jaime crossed to her- she still had one arm wrapped around the oak tree- and handed her a handkerchief, which she hastily swiped over her face. He leaned against the tree, eyes staring far past her when he spoke: "I wonder how much the gods ever hear- any of them."

"That's blasphemy," she mumbled. He raised his eyebrows, gave a hoarse laugh.

"Hardly a foreign concept to me, my lady."

Suddenly, Sansa wished desperately that he would leave- she felt her stomach go queasy and her head begin to ache. She found that she could not look at him anymore, and she stared down at the blood spots on the handkerchief instead. In her ear, an echo of an overheard conversation that she'd tried and failed to set aside, its continued presence rankling her more with each passing hour.

She'd heard, as everyone in court had heard, of Stannis Baratheon's claim that the King had left behind no legitimate heir. The subject was whispered about in the most secret places, for the Queen had made quick work of punishing those unfortunate enough to be caught speaking of it. Sansa hadn't known what to believe- none of Cersei's children favored Robert Baratheon, so perhaps the idea was not so impossible- but she'd largely dismissed it as nothing more than talk.

But what she overheard weeks later, from two passing Kingsguard knights-  _surely just an ugly rumor embellished for effect, but even so..._

What troubled her most about the whole thing was her own initial reaction to the news. Rather than the expected revulsion and disgust, her immediate response came in the form of relief.  _If this is true, then at least I know that Jaime can father a child._ And then she waited, waited for the horror that never came.

Perhaps she'd seen too much, experienced too much. After the constant barrage of death after tragedy after atrocity, perhaps she'd grown jaded to the point where nothing could truly shock her anymore. Yes, it was a crime against the gods-  _but the Targaryens did it for generations..._

The more she thought about it, the more it seemed to fit together. She'd always sensed something not-quite-right about Jaime's relationship with his sister- they never looked at each other, behaved together the way she would with her own brothers. At first, she'd attributed it to the fact that they were twins; having shared a womb, they surely had a different sort of bond than ordinary siblings would. But this- this made a startling amount of sense. There was a harmony to the notion that she found weirdly satisfying, like discovering the last piece to a puzzle.

 _What kind of a person have I become?_

Sansa didn't know whether she truly believed it. If there were any proof, they would surely be dead already- Cersei and Jaime and Tommen and Myrcella. But the fact that she could conceive of it, that she could hold the idea in her mind without attacking it with righteous indignation- that was the thought that unsettled her stomach. She'd become sufficiently corrupt, tarnished enough that she could manage to think like a Lannister.

 _And this is why I will take my children far, far away- this is why I will shelter them in Winterfell, why I will keep them away from this place and these people. They will not end up like me._

Sansa threw a glance over her shoulder- Jaime was still there, staring off into nothingness. She almost asked him what he thought about, then realized that she might not wish to know. There had always been a chasm between them, there always would be- they'd neither of them wanted this marriage, after all. His distant gaze, tinged with something hopelessly wistful- she remembered him in Lord Tywin's chambers; the golden Lion of Lannister, the infamous Kingslayer, suddenly meek and helpless. Her stare wandered to his golden hand, glowing in the afternoon sun- she looked back up to his face, the worry lines starting to form around his jaw-  _Do you think me handsome, Sansa?_ A crushing in her chest, somewhere between sympathy and despondence, as she realized:  _He may have created his cage on his own, but he's as trapped as me._

Impulse urged her to take his hand- he flinched as his reverie abruptly ended.  _He's broken, we all are, but he wants to protect me._

"Jaime," she said, her voice soft. His eyebrows lifted with surprise- she very rarely called him by his name. Her grip grew tighter as she gave his arm a little pull. "Jaime. I want-"

 _I want you to tell me it's a lie, what they're saying. I want a baby, I want dozens of babies. I want to go west and walk barefoot on the pebbled beaches and breathe the salt air. I want Winterfell and the North and the cold ground and ice-blue sky. I want to go back, back to a time when I could dream and imagine and really believe it all to be possible._

She felt a knot in her throat, and she paused to swallow it. As she did so, Jaime braced his back against the tree and slid down until he sat beside her. He did not touch her, much to her relief, but he looked at her with eyes too full for her to bear.

He finished her sentence for her: "You want to fly away."

Sansa wanted to cry out, to shout "Yes" into the heavens-  _this place is poison, I want to go, go, go, westward and northward and onward-_

She'd asked him, once or twice or ten times, when they could leave for Casterly Rock. His answers had always been vague- "soon," "not long" - and he'd responded the last time with a layer of steel beneath his voice, enough to dissuade her from asking again. She did not know why he hesitated- or rather, she likely  _did_  know, and she hated that she knew. For Tywin and Tommen and (probably most of all) for Cersei-  _but doesn't he see, if he gets away from here, he might have a chance at being free-_

 _He wants to protect me. Maybe he can protect himself, too. Maybe I can help._

She moved closer to him, until her arm brushed against his. He'd turned his head to look forward- she rested her chin on his shoulder and whispered into his ear, "And you with me, Jaime. We'll get away from here, be lord and lady of our own land, and no one can tell us what to do..."

She was starting to sound like a child again, and she bit down hard on her lip.

Jaime flicked his emerald gaze onto her face. "You forget, little wife, that as long as he lives, my father is still the Lord of Casterly Rock."

She frowned, both at the words and at the tone of resignation in his voice. But then a thought came to her, an epiphany both appalling and thrilling at once- she nearly hesitated to say it aloud, but then-

"But you are the Lord of Winterfell."

She knew the shift in his expression, knew that he was preparing to say something derisive about the barren northlands- she fixed him with a blazing stare, as though daring him to slight her homeland, the land of the Starks, the land she'd give her children.

Something like contrition passed over his face, and he gave a slow nod. "I suppose that's true."

 _A Lannister lord in Winterfell- unspeakable. But perhaps he could come with me...once we were there, he would see, surely, that I must be in the high seat- I am the Stark in Winterfell. And he'd see why I want to protect the northlands, he'd see what his son- what_ _**my** _ _son - will inherit..._

Sansa pulled Jaime's arm around her shoulders and settled her cheek against him. "Did I ever tell you about the northern lights?"

She felt his arm tighten around her as they sat together, as she described the beautiful streaks of color that painted the northern sky bright. She felt his fingers in her hair- they would lie together that night, he would release his seed in her womb, and perhaps this time, it would take. Maybe after he was spent, when he was relaxed and holding her to his chest, maybe then she would ask again when they could go away.

As she continued the story, she caught sight of a mockingbird in the courtyard beyond, hopping along over the cobblestone pathways. It tried to launch itself into flight, over and over, but never hovered more than a fingerslength from the ground. Sansa noticed one wing, damaged and bent, unable to flap and carry its body aloft. In spite of the futility, it tried again and again, and Sansa felt oddly bolstered by its persistence- and then it stopped. It released a chirp, expressive and impossibly human- a sound of absolute defeat.

She finished her story, sat quietly with Jaime against the oak tree, watched with a heavy heart as the mockingbird slowly hopped away and out of view.


	11. Chapter 11

Cersei Lannister did not like to sleep alone, nor did she like to drink alone. She wondered sometimes whether this compromised the independence in which she so prided herself, but she always rejected the idea with a smirk and a scoff.

Her ladies-in-waiting knew it their responsibility to share her bed, and she'd kept a fairly steady rotation for a while- that is, before she found Taena Merryweather. Cersei rarely relished the company of other women- she only wanted a warm body in her bed, and at least with a woman she wouldn't have to suffer the trouble of pleasuring her bedmate- but Taena amused her with her stories of lands far away, with her sharp tongue for gossip and her exquisite beauty, different enough from Cersei's that she seemed exempt from the bitterness that the Queen usually harbored for comely women. She'd grown fond of waking in the circle of Taena's arms, the spicy fragrance that she wore clinging to the bedlinens and the gold and black hair meshed together. She sometimes believed that she saw Taena's eyes darken with something like desire, and she even started to find the idea vaguely intriguing.

And so when the Queen Regent informed Lady Merryweather that she would not require her services that evening, she was unsurprised to see a pang of hurt cross Taena's magnificent face. Lady Merryweather had followed the frown with a rather ribald comment, implying that Cersei intended to take a lover to bed with her that night- she knew she ought to chastise her waiting woman for such impertinence, but she only laughed and shook her head. "I've a new lady-in-waiting, my dear, and she must take a turn." With that, she stroked her hand over the other woman's glossy dark hair and left her to her pouts and sighs.

As she sat cross-legged on her bed, her newest attendant combing her long golden hair with gentle strokes and barely-trembling hands, Cersei felt quite pleased with herself. Oh, Jaime had been upset- furious, really- when Cersei informed him that she'd be plucking his wife from Margaery's little bower and installing her permanently in her own coterie of ladies. He'd initially tried to act nonplussed, giving her only a quirk of an eyebrow and a sardonic, Tyrion-esque comment about Taena: "And here I thought your taste in women ran more toward the...exotic." But she saw the muscles of his jaw working under his skin, the tightening of his shoulders-  _why he even bothers to try and hide anything from me, I'll never understand._ Eventually, he abandoned the facade and looked her hard in the eye, his voice so serious, tinged with a plea- "Cersei, please. Let her be."

If she hadn't already made up her mind about it, that certainly would have settled the matter.

Cersei halted the girl's hands after the one-hundred-and-twentieth stroke and slid from the bed to retrieve a glass from the table. A syrupy mixture of herbs and heated wine swirled stormily in the goblet, dark and thick and ominous. Cersei pushed her nose into the glass and inhaled deeply-  _Gods keep you, Taena, you marvelous creature._ Lady Merryweather had told her enough of the Myrish spices and their mind-altering properties to thoroughly pique the Queen's interest, and after Taena gifted her with a parcel of dried stems and florets, Cersei resolved to save the tincture for a special occasion.

_Special, indeed._ Sansa balked, of course, murmuring her tedious fears about drinking anything peculiar- it had become something of a bad joke around court, Lady Lannister's desperation to conceive a child. Cersei found herself torn between genuine pity for the girl's plight and a perverse satisfaction with the indignity of it all. She knew that Father had bought one of Sansa's maidservants and instructed her to deliver intricate reports on Sansa's cycle, what she ate and drank, how often she and Jaime fucked-  _as if he's breeding tourney horses._

And she found that she liked it, liked to see Jaime treated as nothing more than a Lannister stud-  _this is how it should always have been; were he born with the cunt and I with the cock, he would have been sold as I was...no reason for a mistake in anatomy to interfere with our fates..._

She could sputter and mutter all she liked, but Sansa obviously had no choice but to obey the Queen's command. Cersei watched as the girl took a sip of the liquid- watched her eyes glaze a little as the aromatic spices wafted into her nose- and frowned when she failed to notice any movement in Sansa's throat. Quick as could be, she placed a hand on either side of Sansa's face and lightly pressed her cheeks. "Swallow."

Sansa's eyes narrowed, but the muscles in her face had already begun to relax...she swallowed, inhaled, exhaled. "What is this?"

"It will relax you." Cersei leaned back against the cushions and sighed with contentment. So much time spent with a clear head, always sharp and on-guard and alert- altogether too much lucidity. It felt wonderful to release and float above herself; she took Sansa's hand and ran her thumb over the short, jagged fingernails. "Are you not tired, Sansa?"

"Yes," the girl breathed. Cersei closed her hand over Sansa's and nearly giggled as she realized how comically small it was, especially for such a tall, long-limbed girl - any smaller, and her hands might be considered a deformity. That idea tickled her even more, and she did laugh this time.

Sansa's face may have grown slack, but her fingers still tap-tap-tapped- Cersei gripped Sansa's hand tighter, until she had no choice but to still her movement. "You're such an anxious child," the Queen mused, her voice suddenly sounding very far away. She smiled as a memory came upon her- "I was an anxious child. Hardly anyone knew...Father expected perfect poise from his perfect daughter, you see. But I used to grind my teeth in my sleep...the nurses tried everything, it was no use...and sometimes I'd grow so nervous that I couldn't breathe properly, and I'd have to put my head between my legs like this"- Cersei moved to the side of the bed and dropped forward at the waist, until her hair hung nearly to the floor. She continued to speak, still leaning over: "Jaime would sit with me and rub my back until I could breathe again, and then we'd go about the day as if nothing had happened."

The blood rushed to her head in a rather pleasant burst of warmth, and Cersei allowed herself to stay in position for a few breaths. And then a hand rested on her back, rubbing in circles slow and deliberate- exactly the pressure and tempo of Jaime's ministrations, all those years ago.  _Gods, it is so good..._ she sighed, let her eyes flutter shut. At once, she imagined Jaime sitting behind Sansa, tending to the knotted muscles of her bare back. She imagined the girl sighing as Cersei was doing now, imagined her arching into Jaime's touch, imagined him leaning down to kiss the side of her neck...

Cersei straightened her back and sat upright. Sansa removed her hand with a start, but her eyelids grew heavy and a misty smile teased at her full pink lips.

The Queen drank again from the goblet, waited for Sansa to do the same.

Hands found hands again, and Cersei shook her head slowly, side to side. "So little," she mused. "But such a lucky little girl. Do you know how lucky you are, pet?"

"Am I?" Sansa sounded breathless, as though she'd just run circuits around the castle yards. Cersei nodded, releasing one of the girl's hands to stroke her auburn hair-  _thick and coarse, nowhere near as fine as mine...or Jaime's..._

"They all wanted him, sweetling. All of the girls wanted my brother...my perfect, golden brother. Even now that he's a lion missing a paw, women's eyes follow him. You've noticed, I'm sure."

Sansa blinked quizzically, as though the thought had never once entered her mind.  _Such a peculiar girl._ Although she quickly discovered the futility of caring, Cersei had never failed to spot the women angling after Robert. She gave her head a quick shake to rid herself of thoughts of her little-lamented husband before proceeding:

"I would never let him be given to just  _anyone,_ Sansa. But you..." She traced her fingertips over the side of the girl's face. "You are special."

Sansa mouthed the word after her, blue eyes laughably wide, a faint flush creeping into her cheeks. Cersei nearly rolled her eyes at the naivety-  _yes, you little fool, you're young and pretty and the highest-born girl in the Seven Kingdoms..._ but then she considered the girl's broken engagement, the humiliations before the court, the forced marriage to Tyrion... There had been a moment before that wedding when Cersei looked at Sansa in her white dress, fresh as a lily and pure and radiant- and it all felt so terribly wrong, so miserably unfair- Cersei found herself thinking,  _I'd marry you myself if I could, sweetling._

_I'd marry you myself._

"Is my brother good to you, Sansa?" Cersei kept her hand on Sansa's face, stroking her cheekbone in rhythm.

"He is very kind, Your Grace." Her voice sounded just as far away-  _Gods, the Myrish must be mad, to take this on any regular basis- mad, or brilliant..._

"Just kind?" Her fingers trailed down to the curve of Sansa's neck. The blush on her cheeks deepened, and her smile grew a bit wider. Cersei kept her voice low, thrilling in the whisper- "And strong, too, is he not?"

"Yes," Sansa replied. Cersei cupped her shoulder in hand, and Sansa gave a shudder that clearly had nothing to do with revulsion. Heavy-lidded blue eyes met heavy-lidded green ones, and Cersei finished-

"And handsome. Jaime is so very, very handsome."

"Yes." Sansa brought her little tiny hand so close to Cersei's face- she barely brushed the sides of her fingers over a piece of flaxen hair. "Your face...is so like his."

It pleased her to hear that, even now. Of course, she knew it to be less true than ever, and not only because of her brother's short-cropped hair and beard.  _The years do not deal equally with men and women- yet another injustice thrust upon us by vindictive gods._ Cersei could see herself fading, day after day after day- every morning a new crease, every evening a new silver strand of hair. She'd taken to wearing cosmetics- kohl around her eyes, rouge on her cheeks - something she'd never done before. But whatever might have befallen the rest of him, Jaime's face only grew finer with age, the lines and edges adding a masculine gravity that had been lacking in his prettier youth.

_A man in his prime, deserving of a lovely young wife._

Oh, and how lovely she was. Cersei remembered what she'd seen in Sansa Stark, when the girl had come to King's Landing all those moons ago- a pretty child, the daughter of the Hand, betrothed to the Crown Prince...herself as she would have been, if not for Aerys' absurd vendetta against her father. But the dreamy little lass was gone, replaced by a young woman with long, coltish legs, ample hips, and a bosom at least as full as Cersei's own. Beneath Sansa's diaphanous shift, Cersei could see the little pink peaks of her nipples- she imagined Jaime's mouth on them, his hand skimming over her flat stomach, her perfect, unblemished skin- Gods, she was beautiful, all russet and blue and white, innocent and yearning and clean-

Cersei gripped the sides of Sansa's face and drew her close, raking her fingers through the red curls. She smiled, tried to ignore the pricking in her chest when Sansa eagerly returned the smile.

"Sweet girl," she sighed.

And she didn't know what she sought, when she pulled the girl closer and pressed her mouth to Sansa's. But once she felt Sansa's lips, dry and chapped beneath her own, she felt a desperate desire to breathe in the youth and the beauty and the possibility, to possess her, to become  _part_ of her-  _Jaime's been inside her, I must be inside her, too..._

She bit down hard on Sansa's lip, running her tongue over the resulting drop of blood. She felt Sansa's mouth moving against hers, felt the girl's hand in her hair- but the tang of the blood, harsh and sharp and bracing- behind her eyelids, she saw the darkness of maiden's blood on her silver ring, the blood that flowed down Sansa's back after her beatings before Joffrey, the blood that spurted from Ned Stark's neck when his head tumbled down-

Cersei broke the kiss, panting heavily, and lowered her face. But Sansa cupped her chin in a dainty palm, tipped her head up, stared her straight in the face, spoke in a voice so plain and clear and earnest-

"Cersei. Your eyes... they are so sad."

And she could hold it no longer- her arms coiled around Sansa, and she buried her face into the lush thicket of red-brown hair. She clung to the girl, breathed her scent, couldn't stop the tears from spilling over her cheeks as she sobbed with abandon-

"I am sorry, Sansa. I am so sorry."

She wept for what seemed like hours, days, years. All the while, Sansa's hands smoothed over her head, cradled her to her chest, rocked her like a child as she repeated again and again, until her voice failed her-

"I am so sorry."

* * *

Cersei awoke with a throbbing in her head and the crust of dried tears and mucus on her cheeks. A sickly, squelching feeling seized her stomach as she sat bolt upright and waited, waited for Sansa to awake, prayed that she'd forget all that happened between them, that the night could fade into obscurity, never to be spoken of again.

The redhaired girl stirred, opened her eyes. When she found the Queen awake, she pushed herself up on the pillows and met Cersei's gaze.

A harsh sting of bile crept into Cersei's throat - she'd seen that exact look before from Sansa's father, when he'd stroked her bruised skin and spurned her advances. Cersei felt her muscles and heart harden, for what she saw in the eyes of Sansa Stark Lannister, the put-upon little victim and powerless pawn- what she saw was pity.

And above all else, pity was something that Cersei Lannister could never and would never forgive.

 


	12. Chapter 12

Like most right-minded people, Sansa had always felt quite repulsed by the notion of insanity. She equated it with the Mad King, with his deep-seated paranoia and fondness for burning innocent men alive. She also thought of her Aunt Lysa, sequestered in the Eyrie, who Mother always called "touched" in a tone that implied something broken and almost sinister.

These were people to be feared or pitied. And yet when she thought of them now, Sansa could not help but consider their perspectives, the terror of living inside a world where everyone is an enemy, where nothing is ever safe, where keeping oneself in one place, in one piece, seems impossible.

_I understand that, I feel it all the time. I suppose I must be mad, too._

She left the Queen Regent's chambers that morning in frantic haste, her head still swimming with the effects of the drink, her heart pounding and breath quick. Panic pressed like a stone wall at every side, and she ran through the corridors, knocking past servant girls and squires and anyone else unfortunate enough to find themselves in her path.

Her lower lip still throbbed where Cersei had bitten her- her cheeks burned, tingled painfully-  _I kissed her back._ And then the crying and the apologies and the morning, when the Queen Regent had looked at Sansa, green eyes blazing with something angry and cruel and brutal and dangerous-

She ducked into an archway and vomited into a large urn. The liquid expelled from her stomach was blood-red and thick- she could taste the Myrish herbs in her mouth afterward. A lift of the arm to wipe the residue from her lips, and she was off again.

Her maidservants descended upon her at once, but she ordered them all out. When they hesitated, she began to scream, screamed until her throat went raw. This frightened away most of them, but Shae kept hold of her shoulders, trying to look her in the eye and speak to her evenly- Sansa watched as though outside herself as she lifted her right hand and struck the back of it across the dark-haired girl's face.

Shae's beautiful black eyes widened, and Sansa felt at once deeply ashamed. But instead of an apology, she only hissed: "Leave. Now."

When she found herself alone at last, Sansa tore through the chamber like a tempest, rummaging under furniture, opening wardrobes, digging through chests.  _I'm leaving now, I'll go without him, I don't care, I have to get out, have to get out before anything else happens-_

In spite of the chaos she'd created in the room, she opted against bringing most of her belongings. In the end, she filled her rucksack with only the grey-and-white Stark cloak she'd worn to her wedding, a brooch that had belonged to her mother, and the tattered, blood-stained remnant of Sandor Clegane's Kingsguard cloak.  _He wanted to take me away from here...he offered, and I refused him. I was such a fool..._

She slung the rucksack over her shoulder and made for the door, exhilaration sparking through her veins- but then the doubts came, each one slowing her pace:

_Where am I going? How will I get there? Will I make it through the woods without being attacked or raped? What if the Queen sends someone after me? What if Jaime comes looking for me?_

Logic clogged her bloodstream and seized her muscles, and she shook so violently that she thought she might break, just shatter like glass. The terror and the excitement and the disappointment all pushed at her guts and she dry-heaved a few times, purging only a bit of stomach acid. So splintered and disjointed, even the slightest breath of wind would burst her apart and carry her every which way-  _Let it happen, let me go,_ she thought boldly, but then she grew frightened again- _I am not brave, I am not Robb or Jon or Arya, I am just me...just me, here with no protection, without even a child in my womb to keep me safe...and I am still afraid, afraid to die, afraid of the pain...but it wouldn't even be death, Cersei and Lord Tywin are too clever for that, they'd think of some new and creative way to ruin me..._

She felt suddenly exposed, overwhelmed by vulnerability. She needed to hide somewhere, to wedge herself into a little nook and keep her pieces together...

Her eyes lit upon a tiny space between the wall and the huge armoire that concealed most of Jaime's weaponry. Opening the rucksack, she withdrew Sandor's cloak and held it to her heart. Although she'd grown tall and her legs and arms seemed longer each day, Sansa still had the ability to curl herself into a compact package. She crawled in, the bloody fabric balled in a fist, and drew her knees to her chest, the tightness of the space making her feel at once trapped and secure.

She buried her face in the piece of cloak and breathed. The sharp scent of blood still clung to it, after all this time- she wanted to cry, but the dryness of her eyes refused to abate.

Voices began to leak into the room- her maidservants returning, whispering amongst themselves, all concern and confusion and apprehension-  _people don't like to be close to madness, in case it's catching._

But Sansa heard none of it. She just closed herself up in her own mind and went away. This felt different from her other flirtations with eccentricity- the hunger protest and ludicrously-conservative clothing seemed like childish games in comparison. And yet there was something familiar; this separation of her mental and physical beings bore a great similarity to what she'd done to cope with her beatings at the hands of Joffrey's Kingsguard. When they would strike her again and again, lash after lash over her back until the skin cracked and blood streamed over her backside and down her legs, she would simply fly up and out, staring down at her body with a distant sort of fascination, as though it all were happening to someone else, somewhere else.

She remembered a story she'd heard once, of a lord who kept his mad wife locked in a tower for years and years. Even after he'd taken another wife and started a new family, she remained there, her howls of pain and laughter haunting the castle until the day she died.

The notion seemed almost romantic in its sadness-  _the singers would surely write about me if Jaime locked me away...I always used to dream of being a character in a song..._

Her servants took turns kneeling against the wall, trying to coax her out, but they may as well have been speaking in tongues for all she understood. She did feel a little pang of guilt when Shae whispered to her with that velvet-smooth voice, but she still refused to yield.

After what might have been minutes or hours or days, she heard a man's voice among the twittering of women, sensed the commotion dwindling, the bodies filing out of the room until everything grew very quiet.

Peripheral vision showed her a glint of gold, but she kept her head bowed down, kept her face pressed into the stained cloth.

None of her maidservants had tried to touch her- no doubt out of self-preservation- but Jaime insinuated his hand into the tight crevice and placed it on her knee, undaunted by her shuddering.

He spoke in a soft, gentle tone, one that he might have used in the past to calm spooked horses. "What happened, Sansa? What did she do to you?"

Sansa only squinched her eyes tighter and pressed her face harder into her own fists.  _She's breaking me, and she won't stop, not ever...she'll keep chipping away until there's nothing left..._

Jaime sat on the floor and slid over until his face and body filled the sliver of space between the chamber and her cranny. He stroked his hand over her leg, his voice dulcet and nearly seductive-

"Tell me, sweetling."

She jolted at that last word, and the back of her head smacked hard against the wall. His cadence, exactly like his sister's...against her better judgment, she glanced over and caught sight of green eyes and golden hair and she suddenly had trouble breathing and her head ached so badly...

His hand tensed on her leg in reaction to the thump of her head against stone and her continued refusal to utter a sound. When he spoke again, she noticed a current of urgency beneath his words-

"If you tell me, I can help. Tell me, Sansa. I command it."

She startled herself with her impromptu response: "No. No, you can't help."

He inhaled sharply, but remained silent for a moment. His hand moved to close over hers, and she felt him brush the edge of Sandor's cloak with his index finger. If she looked over at Jaime's face now, she knew she'd see confusion, maybe even consternation-  _He would have done what you will not, he would have taken me away..._

She could hear the set of his jaw, his patience wearing thin: "You're behaving like a child."

"I  _am_ a child," she whispered in reply.

His finger halted its movement on the white fabric, and she heard him heave a deep, beleaguered, weighty sigh.  _You sound so old when you do that..._

She half-expected him to retreat after that, but he remained seated against the wall; she felt his warmth through the crevice.

He did not know what to say to her, that much was obvious. She found herself growing so tired, so tired of his excuses and his stalling...she remembered that afternoon in the corridor outside the Tower of the Hand, when she'd turned to him and asked "What use are you?"

That question seized her brain once again, and she felt cruel words pushing at her mouth, fighting so hard to come out- she bit down on her lips to keep them in, nearly crying out when her incisor pierced the bruise from the night before.

At last, she spoke the words that had swirled in her mind all day, words that may or may not have been true, but which felt correct in their gravity:

"I will not stay here- I can't bear it. If you don't get me out, I swear by the old gods and the new...I will do it."

She listened as he sucked a breath in and held it-  _he understands._

Her volume dropped, and she continued at a volume somewhere between a whisper and a growl-

"I'll do it, I'll find a way, and it will be on your hands."

She did not need to explain what the "it" was.

After a solemn, eternal silence, she heard him whisper, "Five days. Give me five days, and we will leave at the end of the week."

A stirring, a shimmering in her chest and belly-  _but no, he's done this before...how many times have I heard "soon", "not long"...?_

The shouting from earlier had ravaged her throat, but she quite appreciated the harsh, gravelly nature of her voice when she retorted: "I don't believe you."

A bolt of terror struck her when he pulled a dagger from his belt and placed it in her hand. She turned to look at him fully, eyes wide and incredulous.

He extended his left hand to her, palm facing up. He raised his eyebrows, and she knew at once what she was meant to do.

She struggled to disentangle her arm, but eventually managed to swipe the blade over his palm, drawing a thin ribbon of blood. He waited for her to do the same to her own hand before gripping it tight, their blood flowing together to create an unbreachable seal.

"I will take you away in five days. I swear it."

The perspiration from both of their palms burned in the cut, but she welcomed the pain as further validation of the promise. She held onto his hand-  _he let me damage his one remaining hand, offered it as sacrifice-_ and allowed him to guide her out from behind the armoire.

She found herself unable to stand, her legs stiff and aching from contortion and disuse. Jaime lifted her as though she weighed nothing at all, and she felt a little twinge of desire when her knees locked around his torso. She draped her arms around his neck and rested her head against his, allowing him to carry her into the bedchamber.

His beard prickled the shell of her ear as he breathed, "Good girl."

Her hands clenched on the back of his neck, and she felt him flinch when her nails dug deep into the skin.

* * *

The next day passed gently and quietly. Her episode from the previous day proved drastic enough that her maidservants and the ladies of the court refrained from approaching her, and she relished the time alone.

She began to arrange her things, this time in a much more orderly manner. As she rifled through her dresses, she found a gown that she'd never had occasion to wear, one that she'd entirely forgotten. It had been a bridal gift from Lady Merryweather: a beautiful white sheath of Myrish lace. It revealed far too much skin to wear in polite company, yet it seemed too fine to wear as a nightshift- she stood before her looking glass and stripped down to her smallclothes before pulling the garment over her head and fastening the delicate laces.

The material clung to her curves, highlighting her breasts, hips and tapered waist. It scooped low both in back and front; when she turned around, Sansa could see the gnarled evidence of her floggings, still violently pink against her white skin. The sleeves also ended earlier than she would have liked, reaching only to her elbows. She turned her wrists over and frowned at the faint scars etched along her veins, put there months ago- a fledgling attempt that mostly just embarrassed her now. When Jaime had asked about them, she told him that she fell into a rosebush; she knew that he did not believe her, but he pressed her no farther.

She swished her hips back and forth, liking the way the lace moved with her. After checking to ensure that she was quite alone, she twirled about the room, waiting in vain for the giddy lightness that would have accompanied this activity back in Winterfell.

_I'm leaving in four days...actually, three days, eighteen hours and forty-two minutes..._ When the thought failed to lift her spirits to her satisfaction, Sansa stopped her twirling and leaned against the windowsill.

She could think of several reasons for her continued anxiety.  _Something could still happen, Jaime could change his mind, I won't truly believe it until I ride past the gates of King's Landing._

Yet she knew that none of those accounted for the gnawing at her insides. The room suddenly felt stiflingly hot, and she decided to take a walk through the grounds before night descended.

As she proceeded toward the door of the Red Keep, in her lace dress with no cloak over her shoulders, she wished that she'd "gone mad" far earlier- no one tried to stop her, no one interrupted. They whispered and stared, but she cared not a whit about that.

The cool air of evening settled upon her skin, and she took pleasure in the bracing chill. After she'd crossed several courtyards, she slipped off her shoes and hose, letting her toes sink into the slightly-damp soil. She noticed a smattering of tiny white flowers on the ground, flowers that she found familiar. They used to appear on the hillside where Father performed executions, clustering around the large, flat rock. Theon told her once that the blood seeped into the dirt and spawned the blossoms, the flowers coming to life in the wake of human death. He may have been jesting in an effort to frighten her, but the whole idea felt upsetting and macabre, and she'd always avoided the delicate, beautiful blooms.

But now she knelt on the ground and filled her hands with white petals, twisting the stems together to form garlands. She stood and continued on her way, draping the death flowers over her shoulders and arms as she proceeded toward the brook.

The little river flowed through the outer courtyards, eventually emptying into a pond in a clearing: her final destination. Her bare feet slipped a little on the stones, but she continued to walk right along the water's edge, her flower garland trailing in the stream. With her white dress and flowing hair and flowers, she looked like the heroine of one of Old Nan's saddest stories, in which the fair lady falls in love with a knight who does not return her favor, and she pines for him until she perishes from heartbreak. Old Nan would always describe in rather lurid detail the corpse floating in the water, cold and beautiful, with flowers strewn throughout her hair.

The story seemed stupid now-  _she hardly even knew the knight, only saw him from her window and spoke with him once. Any woman who falls in love with only a pretty face is a fool and deserves what she gets...but of course, that's always the way of it in songs._

When she reached the clearing, Sansa stepped away from the brook and stood in the center of the grassy area. She realized with some shame that she hadn't the slightest idea which way was north- the sun had set already, and she could not read the stars. She vaguely remembered being present for one of Father's lessons, when he taught the compass to Robb and Jon and Theon, but she hadn't paid attention.  _I never paid attention to anything important._

She planted one foot firmly on the ground and pivoted her body to face front, then to the side, then back, then to the other side, one two three four, in even rhythm-

_I stand tonight facing north, east, south, west..._

Something about the steady rotation helped her to bring her mind to center, like the whirring of a pottery wheel, shaping the clay to a single point. As the moments passed, she at last identified what had been plaguing her all day-

_I've felt very sorry for myself of late...I've blamed the Lannisters for everything, turned myself into a victim...but the septons teach atonement, taking responsibility for what happens to you..._

_Northeastsouthwest..._

_Jaime and Cersei are wrong about me. I'm not a good girl, I'm not a sweet girl. I've been very, very bad. I've lied and betrayed and coveted and hurt others to save myself._

_Perhaps the gods are right to punish me._

She felt herself begin to slip into melancholia, but she instead clung to one word and used it to pull herself up and out:  _Atonement._

_If I do penance, maybe they'll let me go away and have my babies and finally be rid of all of this..._

She spun faster as she considered this. It was too late to do anything about Lady or her father or Arya...too late to do anything about the thoughts she'd have sometimes about Sandor while in bed with Jaime, too late to do anything about the fact that she'd let Cersei kiss her and responded in kind...

_But there is something else I can do._

Once she made up her mind, Sansa halted mid-turn. She watched the tiny points of light pop in and out of her frame of vision, breathed in the night air, shivered with apprehension and excitement and dread and anticipation...

But never once did the daughter of the North shiver with cold.

* * *

Gaining access to the dungeon cells proved simpler than Sansa ever would have expected. She'd spent the entire day reviewing her plan, forming contingencies, visualizing it all and screening for error. She knew the guard who would be on duty that evening; he was younger than the rest, and reasonably pleasant. She'd caught him watching her once or twice, and she knew the gleam in his eyes, had seen it often enough in recent months, as her body shed its childish gawkiness and took on the shape of a woman.

Using this as the focal point of her strategy, Sansa brushed her hair until it shone like copper, pinched her cheeks and bit her lips to bring a rosy glow to both, and selected her most flattering gown: a dark-crimson frock that she'd had for some time, but which fit her quite differently now. She'd worn it to dine in the Great Hall a week earlier, and she'd felt rather overwhelmed and more than a little flushed by the attention she received from the men of the court. Even Jaime, who seldom looked at her with desire outside the confines of their bedroom, let his eyes wander to the swell of her breasts at the low neckline.

She dabbed a floral fragrance on her pulse points, checked her reflection once more in the looking glass, and made her way down the corridors. As she walked, Sansa felt herself begin to quail- she was useless at flirtation, always had been. She tried to imagine how a woman like Cersei might handle herself in this situation, but the thought made her stomach cramp and she shook her head to rid herself of it. Instead, she looked to Margaery for inspiration- sweet, pretty, sociable, duplicitous Margaery.

When she approached the guard, she called upon all of Margaery's coquettish little tricks- she giggled and simpered and twisted a lock of hair around her finger. She had some whisper-thin story prepared about wanting to bring Tyrion a message from her husband- something that would never have withstood any sort of scrutiny. But the guard scarcely seemed to hear her, distracted as he was by the way her gold pendant necklace dipped into her cleavage.

After several tedious, embarrassing minutes of this, the guard unlatched the door and gestured her through. "Call for me when you've finished, my lady," he said with a smile, and she replied with effusive thanks.

Sansa had not known what to expect from Tyrion's cell, but she found herself thoroughly dumbstruck by the sight that awaited her: Tyrion's small body huddled against a wall, his wrists and ankles in shackles, his clothing filthy, an unpleasant smell lingering in the air. She felt suddenly furious-  _this is despicable, for a man of his rank to be kept in conditions that wouldn't suit vermin..._

She now understood the Lannister twins' vehement fights behind the heavy door of Lord Tywin's study-  _it must make Jaime sick, to see his brother like this._

The Imp lifted his head to look at her, and Sansa was surprised by the alertness of his expression, the lucid hardness in his eyes.

His voice sounded a touch raspy and metallic- likely from disuse- but perfectly clear when he addressed her:

"Lady Sansa Stark Lannister-Lannister. It has been a long time." His mismatched eyes contained something steely and bitter as they swept over her body and then back up to her face. "You've grown."

She started to bite down on her lip, but caught herself first. But she could not prevent a flush of shame from appearing on her cheeks-  _he's right, I should have come earlier..._

"I would offer you a chair, but as you can see, my accommodations are sadly spare." He pulled himself upright, struggling a bit with the chains; Sansa moved to help him, but he waved her aside. "To what do I owe the pleasure, sweet sister?"

She had some words prepared, but as she faced him, dirty and grotesque and yet still so proud- she opened her mouth but released no sound, her jaw just hanging slightly ajar as though she were simple.

He took advantage of her silence, a Lannister-esque sneer twisting his lips- "My brother speaks of you, when he comes to see me- I think he's growing attached." His grin became wider and crueler at the sight of her deepening blush. "I suppose it's easier to spread your legs for a Lannister when he's tall and handsome, eh, little wolf?"

In spite of her instinct to snap a retort, she lowered her eyes and kept her counsel.  _I deserve this, every bit of it._

Tyrion's question hung in the air, seeming less rhetorical with each passing second. Finally, Sansa met his stare, hoping that her voice sounded as contrite as she felt-

"I know that there's nothing I can say to...no excuse for..." Her throat went dry, and all the swallowing in the world could do nothing to budge the knot forming at the base. "You've every right to blame me, my lo- Tyrion. You've every right to despise me for what I've done...for the coward and fool that I was...that I  _am._.." She hoped in vain that he might say something to spare her, but he kept quiet, still watching her with those uncanny eyes. She took a few small steps closer, her volume dropping to a whisper- "I'm so sorry, Tyrion."  _I sound like her..."I am so, so sorry..."_

He watched her in silence for several moments, the flickering light of the torch exaggerating the hideousness of the crater where his nose once was. Sansa steeled herself for a barrage of cutting remarks, but Tyrion's expression quickly softened, and he shook his head.

"I've plenty of blame to go around, Sansa, but very little of it belongs to you." He slid back down along the wall and seated himself on the filthy stone floor. "I knew that they'd arrest me, that was always my intention...but I hoped that you'd make it safely away. And you would have, if that fool Dontos hadn't gotten himself caught..."

Sansa felt the blood seep out of her face, the memory hitting her harder than the stone wall she'd smacked her head against just two days earlier. "I thought I dreamed that..." It had all seemed so like a dream- Ser Dontos sneaking her out of the Keep, stealing her away toward the river- and then she awoke in that horrible tower cell, strapped to a bed and surrounded by nursemaids.

"No, I'm afraid not." Tyrion sighed heavily. "The idea was to lock me away and keep you free, but now we're both prisoners."

Something in his tone prompted her to say, "But I am innocent, and so are you."

He blinked with surprise, and she understood then-  _he really thinks I did it, really thinks I killed Joffrey..._ and then a clammy sweat appeared on her palms-  _he would have taken the blame to save me._

Sansa moved until she stood next to Tyrion and lowered herself to sit beside him.

"I wouldn't, my lady-" he began, but she interrupted:

"I don't care." The grime had already begun to settle in her skirts, but she merely shrugged it off and looked at the man at her side.

They were quiet together for a time, until Tyrion said in a beleaguered tone, his voice unusually free of wryness or sarcasm-

"Innocent or guilty, it's all the same now. I think we both know Cersei well enough to understand that she's not especially interested in actual justice."

"Yes," Sansa murmured. She looked away from Tyrion to stare down at her hands, but she felt his gaze still upon her.

"She's hurting you, isn't she?"

"I don't think it's only me that she's trying to hurt...maybe not really me at all." She surprised herself with her own candour- she'd never spoken these words aloud to anyone. An exhale carried her next phrase, breathy and wistful- "I just wish that they'd leave me out of it."

Out of the side of her field of vision, she saw Tyrion nod. "I always thought it something of a blessing, Jaime being named to the Kingsguard. There's not a girl in the world who deserves such a fate...not even your delightful Aunt Lysa, who would have been the unlucky one had things worked out differently."

She turned to look him in the eye again. Tyrion pursed his lips, a glistening of pity joining the torchlight in his pupils. "It's true, you know. Everything you've heard about them."

She knew it, of course, but the confirmation from Tyrion stung more sharply than she would have thought. A nod served as her only reply.

"Aside from the situation with Cersei, how has it been, with Jaime?"

She expected to see something lascivious in Tyrion's expression, but was met only by genuine interest. It had been so long since anyone asked her how she fared and actually wanted to hear an answer...

Sansa shrugged. "I feel...I feel sad for him, most of the time. There is much he  _could_ do, but he never..."

Tyrion laughed, just a light, dry sound. "To know Jaime is to be disappointed in Jaime."

She knew that she should come to her husband's defense, but Sansa could not deny the truth of Tyrion's words.

Sidling a bit closer, Sansa said quietly, "He's going to come and see you tomorrow. What will you say to him?"

"No more than I've said to him the other two-dozen times he's come, I expect."

"But this might be your last chance." Tyrion raised his eyebrows at that, and she continued, "We're leaving for Casterly Rock at the end of the week...if you tell him what he wants to hear, he might be able to convince Cersei..."

And Tyrion laughed again- this time a cold, hard sound. "You haven't grown quite as much as I thought. Jaime does not influence Cersei- it's the other way around, always has been. There's nothing he can do for me."

He pushed his right fist into his left hand and cracked his stubby knuckles. "Casterly Rock, eh? Leaving the lion's den and fleeing to...another lion's den."

"It has to be better than here," she replied crisply. Another lift of the eyebrows, and she elaborated- "I won't have Cersei watching me all the time, I'll be the lady of the house...I'll be safer there..."

At that, Tyrion reached over to grip her arm- she winced at the surprising force of his fingers.

"Listen to me, Sansa. Are you listening?"

She nodded dumbly, eyes wide, breath short.

"It does not matter where you go, or who you go there with. Whether it be Casterly Rock or Winterfell or the Free Cities or the ends of the bloody earth, it does not matter."

A beat of silence, a dimming of the torchlight, an absolute, pervasive sense of dread-

"As long as you are Sansa Stark, you will be safe nowhere."


	13. Chapter 13

Chaos and Jaime Lannister made comfortable companions.  On the battlefield, surrounded by clashing and screaming and steel and blood and skin, he used to find this sort of peace, this strange, meditative quiet. 

 

He strode through the corridors of the Red Keep in a hazy cocoon, barely aware of the sounds buzzing around him- “The Hand is dead,” “The Imp has fled”, gasps of shock and squeals of panic whirring into a sing-song melody that nearly made him smile.  _I must look quite deranged,_ he reflected, but he did nothing to adjust his expression.

 

A pinprick of color in a darkened corner and a muffled sniff returned him to the present.  He approached the archway and found Tommen huddled in the shadows, pale-green eyes dewy and frightened. 

 

“What is happening, Uncle Jaime?” he whispered. 

 

And in a moment of impulse, Jaime did something he’d never done before.  He knelt beside the boy-king and swept his nephew- _my son-_ into his arms, holding him tight to his chest.  The points of Tommen’s heavy iron crown pricked at his skin, but Jaime did not loosen his grip, just raised his left hand to stroke through curls of burnished gold.

 

A drop of moisture fell into the join of Jaime’s neck and shoulder, and he pulled away from Tommen just enough to take the boy’s round face between his hands.  Tommen winced a bit at the chill of cold metal against his cheek, but he held still enough.  Jaime used his left thumb to brush a tear away as the words came, soft and low- “All will be well.  Do you hear me, Your Grace?  All will be well.”

 

He repeated the phrase again and again, hoping that he might convince himself along with Tommen. 

 

A glance to the side revealed the Queen Regent and her ladies, hastening toward the Tower of the Hand- he met Cersei’s gaze and strengthened his grip on Tommen, even as her eyes narrowed. 

 

(Sansa scarcely slowed her pace as she rushed along in Cersei’s wake, but she turned her head to give him her clear, comprehending blue stare, and he felt at once strangely bolstered.)

Tempting though it was to retreat to his chambers that evening and avoid the inevitable, he found himself drawn to the opposite end of the castle, where Cersei awaited him in the hidden, all-too-familiar alcove near her apartments. 

 

She stood still before the small window casement, pale moonlight painting her loose hair with a spectral glow.  When she lifted her face to look at him, Jaime quailed at the pure, naked despair behind her eyes. For a brief, mad moment, he wished to hold her to him as he had Tommen, to whisper assurances in her ear until she could breathe easily.

 

 

But instead he stood apart and waited.  She crossed to him slowly, coming to a halt directly in front of him, so close that their chests nearly touched.  Without thinking, he leaned into her, their faces less than a hairsbreadth apart, until they breathed the same air, warm and thick and tremulous. 

 

She began, as he knew she would-  “You went down to the dungeons this morning.  You went to see him.”

 

An ache pressed at his heart as it occurred to him that Cersei spoke not in the Common Tongue, but in the language they’d devised together as children.  Perhaps she chose to do so in the interest of caution- _there are ears everywhere-_ but he let that idea fall away as he watched the swirl of emotion in her eyes. 

 

He remembered a time, not very long ago, when he and his sister could communicate easily without so much as a word.  They would merely sit opposite each other and stare, passing their thoughts back and forth, and they _knew,_ understood completely, for his mind was her mind and hers his...

 

Her voice cried out in his head, although her lips never moved-

 

_Tell me you didn’t do this.  Tell me that you did not betray me._

Jaime’s right arm extended of its own volition, the golden hand resting on Cersei’s shoulder.  And she flinched, wrinkled her nose even as her eyes continued to plead-

 

He felt at once incensed, and he leaned his weight into the gold until it pushed hard into his sister’s soft skin. 

 

_And what have you to say about betrayal?  You, who spread your legs for Lancel and Kettleblack and Gods know who else...you, who forced me away, even when everything I’ve ever done has been for you..._

_  
_Jaime’s next words echoed aloud in their invented tongue- “Ask what you mean to ask, and let’s have done with it.” __

She shifted her shoulders, but he refused to relinquish his hold.  When she attempted to turn her face away, he lifted his left hand to hold it in place.  A brightness appeared in her eyes that seemed, for a brief and tormenting moment, like brimming tears-

 

And then she smiled at him.  The twist of her lips, the flashing of her eyes- he’d seen it all before, two decades earlier, when he drew his sword across Aerys Targaryen’s throat.  The Mad King had died with his eyes wide open and a grin on his face, a grin just like the one Cersei wore now...

 

“I am told that Sansa went to see him yesterday.” 

 

Jaime tightened his grip on Cersei’s hair, but she did not so much as blink.  She only continued, and he realized for the first time how bizarrely serpentine their language sounded-

 

“She may have knowledge of his plans to flee...I suppose we shall have to sit her down before the septons and find out for certain.”

 

An image pasted itself before his eyes, of Sansa as he saw her when he first returned to King’s Landing- thin and pale and weak and shaking, her hair patchy and snarled from where she’d torn at it, her cheeks dampened with desperate tears-

 

He shook his head, his sweat-dampened brow brushing against Cersei’s with each back-and-forth.  “I will confess.  If you question her, I will stand up and tell them that it was me...”

 

The second and third fingers of Cersei’s right hand pressed against his lips; he felt the coolness of her rings on his chin.  “It is to be expected, that you would come to your little wife’s defense.  I’m afraid you’ve little credibility where she is concerned.” 

 

And then he read her eyes again, heard her and felt her-

 

_As long as I draw breath on this earth, so too will you.  I would kill a thousand Sansa Starks to keep it so._

He nearly laughed at the blatant, ironic ugliness of it- _how many innocents must suffer to keep us together, sweet sister?_

She started to whisper, and the words twisted in his gut- “The things I do...”

 

The golden hand slid upward and pressed against her throat with enough force to make her cough.  She clawed at his forearm, her breaths growing thinner and thinner as they glared at each other in unison-

 

He released her and waited as she sucked air frantically into her lungs.  A traitorous little tear made its way out of the corner of her eye, tracing the curve of her cheek. 

 

She stumbled backwards, nearly tripping over her skirts.  Her steps carried her toward her bedroom door, and he made no move to stop her.

 

She spoke only one more phrase aloud, and it reverberated in his bones until he knew not whether he wished to scream or laugh or cry-

 

“I will have justice done, Jaime.”

 

And he knew how she defined justice, how he once defined it- _The rest of the world can burn so long as our hearts still beat._

Something in her eyes reached out and clung to him, begging for validation or acquiescence or approval- but the revulsion pushing through his veins proved too strong a current, and he dropped his gaze. 

 

When he looked up again, half a moment later, he caught sight only of a flash of golden hair disappearing behind her bedroom door. 

 

He paced the alcove for a moment or two, his mind and senses full with Cersei and justice and Cersei and right and wrong and together and apart and Cersei and Father and Tyrion and punishment and consequence and Cersei, Cersei, Cersei-

 

Then a rush of blood to his legs, and he crossed the castle with the abandon of a madman- _Cersei justice fire blood Cersei Jaime Cersei Jaime_

**_Sansa._ **

****

****

Soft fingertips brushed over his burning cheeks, back and forth and back and forth.  The fingers trembled intermittently, causing a little tickle on the skin beneath his beard. 

 

He had managed to compose himself very slightly before entering their chambers, but Sansa still approached him as though she’d seen a ghost, eyes saucer-wide and face blanched.  He spoke not a word, but he clung to her as he sank down to sit on the side of the bed.  Then she began the anxious whispering-

 

“Jaime- Jaime, I’m so sorry about your father...it is a terrible thing...”

 

His laughter filled the space between them, so hoarse it might pass for a cough- _of course, she thinks this is about Father...._ a sudden pinch of shame twanged at him as he realized how little thought he’d given his father’s death...how little inclined he felt to mourn.  _Surely the time for sorrow will come- there are more pressing issues now._

Green eyes searched her face as Jaime struggled for words- he had no wish to frighten her, but she had to know, had to understand the gravity of the situation, the very real danger about to befall her-

 

But before he could speak, Sansa pressed her palms to his cheeks and drew his head toward her.  Her whisper in his ear bore a different tone from the awkward, courteous apologies she’d been delivering, something more grounded and forceful-

 

“Tyrion did not deserve what was being done to him.”

 

 _You cannot even begin to know._ “No,” he replied, so quietly that he doubted she even heard. __

Sansa pulled away from him just enough to give him her eyes- those open, earnest eyes.  “It was right, what you did.  You were right.”

 

And he was grateful- grateful for whatever validation he could find, grateful for her measured conviction.  But at the same time, he felt a pang of frustration- _haven’t you learned yet, that nothing is so simple?  There is nothing that is purely right or wrong..._

 

As little as he’d been able to give her, Jaime might have done well to strip her of those shreds of idealism that still lingered about her- her innocence had done her no favors, and had in fact wrought suffering beyond belief-

 

But there was a part of Sansa Stark that would always need to believe in these simple principles, just as her father did until the day he died.  And he understood- he too would prefer simpler rules, a world without nuance.  Above all else, he recognized this core of solidness in her soul as something valuable and infinitely precious, and he could not help but wish to preserve it. 

 

 _She deserves to live long and well,_ he found himself thinking as he brushed his hands over her arms. _Not just to exist, but to thrive._

His left hand clasped her right, and he felt a vague ache in his palm when the thin dagger-cut from earlier in the week scraped against its fellow on Sansa’s hand.  She jolted a bit at the contact, shaking her ruddy head. 

 

“If we...if we can’t...I would not hold you to that oath, I understand that things must be different now...”

 

Her voice remained impressively steady, but Jaime noticed a shift in her focus- she tilted her gaze just enough to hide the disappointment that had surely appeared in the crystalline blue.

 

But he gripped her hand harder and pulled a bit, startling her with a gravelly utterance. “ _No.”_

 

He had her full attention now.  “I swore a blood oath, and I will see it done.  You will be free of this place, you will leave and need never return.  I swore it then, I swear it now.”

 

A flash of understanding passed across her face as she processed his choice of words.  He felt a pall of sadness settle itself upon his shoulders when she bit her lip and nodded before reclining against the pillows and pulling him down over her. 

 

Jaime lowered his head to kiss her softly, as he might kiss any talisman before releasing it into the depths of a pond or the swift current of a river. 

 

She toyed with a wisp of golden hair that fell over his brow.  A wistful smile, and she murmured, “I think there may be some North in you, after all.”

 

The statement was ripe for mockery, but he could not even entertain the possibility when he realized that this was the highest praise that Sansa Stark of Winterfell would ever give. 

 

It may have been a gross lapse of propriety, considering the turmoil of the day, but Jaime made slow, deliberate love to his little wife, all the while imagining her soft skin turning to dust, blowing away on the wind, north and south and east and west.

 

He began to draw her over him afterwards, but she instead straightened herself up on the pillows and lowered his face until it rested on her breast.

 

“Will you let me hold you?” she asked in that clean, guileless voice that still sounded so like a girl’s.  He nodded his agreement, wrapped his arms around the lower part of her waist as she settled beside him.

 

Jaime nestled his head into the soft fullness of Sansa’s chest, peppering the freckled skin with a few quick kisses before turning until his ear pressed against her heart. 

 

He drifted into sleep with the thrumming of her heartbeat echoing in his head like footsteps, carrying her farther and farther away.

 

 

 

After a fitful slumber, as his mind stirred to full consciousness but before he opened his eyes, Jaime decided what he must do.

 

He let his eyes remain closed for a time, hiding in the blackness.  The smoothness of Sansa’s skin beneath his good palm, the softness of her body under his head- he strengthened his grasp on her and hovered there for a moment, indulging himself in a brief fancy that he might keep her safe simply by holding her too tight to budge. 

 

One breath, two, three, and he blinked himself awake.  He slowly extricated himself from Sansa’s arms and sat apart, watching the rise and fall of her chest.  Impulse leaned him into her, and he realized his mistake as soon as his lips closed softly over hers; she breathed into the kiss, moving her mouth along with his.  He felt entirely unprepared for a farewell, and he scrambled for something, anything to say-

 

But when he broke the caress, she only nestled her face back into the pillow and kept her eyes firmly shut. 

 

Jaime slipped from the bed and walked toward his dressing chamber, glancing over his shoulder at the “sleeping” girl.  And for the first time, he wished himself a pious man, that he might pray to the gods for her safekeeping and believe that they would hear.

 

 

 

 

His plan was reckless, impromptu and dangerous- in other words, all that a Jaime Lannister strategy ever was or would be.  Nothing but conjecture could support his theory; he based it entirely on whispers and murmurings he’d heard about Sansa’s first escape attempt on the night of Joffrey’s passing. 

 

When the castle guards fished Ser Dontos out of the river and lifted the unconscious Sansa from the bank, they found a mockingbird signet wedged in the mud nearby.

 

He hadn’t the slightest idea how he would approach Baelish about this- Jaime had little fondness for double-talk and witty evasion, so he generally avoided conversation with the former Master of Coin.  Had he the conversational skills of Tyrion- or even Cersei- he might have been able to cushion his request in innocuous banter.  As it was, he stood awkwardly in the door of Baelish’s apartments, exchanging shallow pleasantries as the other man oversaw the arrangement of his belongings- he was, apparently, preparing to depart for the Vale within the fortnight, to be wedded to Lord Arryn’s widow.  Jaime muttered congratulations, accepted condolences, parried words for as long as he could stand it before drawing Baelish into a private enclosure and blurting out his purpose.  Baelish reacted to the proposal with the expected slipperiness, until Jaime quite literally backed him into a corner and hissed-

 

“I don’t care what your reasoning was- whether you wanted to honor her mother’s memory or gain a valuable ally in the heir to Winterfell or whatever else- but if you can still find it worth your while to help her, I would be...”  He breathed in and out, then continued, “...in your debt.”

 

Petyr Baelish pursed his lips very slightly, his grey-green eyes still filled with a gleam of amusement that prompted Jaime to clench his fist. 

 

“Surely you realize that what you ask is treason, Lord Lannister?” 

 

“What I ask is _justice,_ Lord Baelish,” he corrected.  Cersei’s voice began to ring through his headspace again, but he forced it aside.  “Now that my father has passed on, I stand to inherit Casterly Rock and all of its holdings.  If you do this, you will be rewarded however you see fit.”

 

Baelish smiled, tilted his head.  “And if the girl will not come willingly?”

 

“She will come,” Jaime replied, his tone clipped and quiet. 

 

“And what do you propose I _do_ with her, my lord?”    
  
Jaime felt a hot flush of temper rising in reaction to the lilt in Baelish’s voice, but he kept his composure. 

 

“Hide her somewhere...anywhere safe and secret, where she won’t be found by anyone.”

 

“Not even you?”

 

He lowered his eyes for a moment.  Baelish waited for him to swallow the thickness growing in his throat, waited for him to reply-

 

“Not even me.”

 

 

 

The septons could burn incense all they liked, but none of their efforts could mask the heavy, unyielding rankness of the air.  Jaime glanced this way and that- the other men standing vigil over Lord Tywin’s body had their heads bowed low, and he could see the tightness in their chests as they tried to hold their breaths as long as possible.  One younger knight had his tunic pulled up over his nose; Jaime raised his eyebrows at the boy until he lowered the fabric and blushed.

 

He’d made it quite clear to Baelish that Sansa would be alone tonight and pointed out the most effective escape route, but he left the rest to the other man’s discretion.  _Slippery and untrustworthy though he may be, Baelish is no fool.  He has enough self-interest to know that it is no small thing, to have the Lord of Casterly Rock in his debt._

The men stood in a silence punctuated only by the occasional cough or release of breath.  Therefore, the choked sounds coming from the small figure beside him proved highly conspicuous. 

 

Upon Cersei’s ridiculous insistence, King Tommen was to stand vigil before his grandfather’s putrid corpse.  Never mind that he was a child, never mind that he could barely keep to his feet from exhaustion, never mind that his face went green with nausea each time he inhaled- Jaime watched through peripheral vision as the boy bit hard into his lower lip, obviously fighting to keep his tears at bay. 

 

He placed a hand upon the King’s shoulder and guided him away into a corner, kneeling down and whispering-

 

“Would you like me to have you escorted back to your chambers, Your Grace?”

 

Tommen shook his head violently.  “M-Mother says that I must stay...she says that kings must be strong, that they must never be weak and must never cry...”

 

Jaime felt his jaw tighten, and he cupped the boy’s face in his hand.  “Your mother-” But he stopped, the harsh words dying on his tongue.  “You are the King.  If you wish to go to the corner and have a good cry, none will dare to question.  And if they do, they’ll have me to contend with.” 

 

The King’s lopsided, bleary smile stirred something in Jaime, and he leaned forward to kiss Tommen’s plump cheek.  “Take the time you need, Your Grace, and come back when you’re ready.”

 

He rose to his feet and stepped back toward the center of the room.  The stench assailed his senses once again, and he let his eyes flutter shut.  As the flickering candlelight changed the quality of darkness behind the lids, he saw a cavalcade of faces and figures- Tommen in despair, Cersei in desperation, Tyrion in rage, Tywin in death- and Sansa, Sansa in flight.

 

When he opened his eyes again and stared down at the dais where his father’s body rested, Jaime cursed the incense, blaming the billowing smoke for the hot tears leaking from their ducts and spilling over his cheeks.

 

 

 

 

  
  


 


	14. Chapter 14

Under very different circumstances, Cersei would have found the entire situation hilarious- or, at least, she would have laughed heartily at the version of events as told by the bards of the court.

The minstrels and poets interpreted the flight of Sansa Stark not as a solemn ballad of abduction or a dark tale of treachery, but instead as a tragicomic love story. According to them, the beautiful young Lady Lannister pined desperately for her grotesque former husband, enough that she stole away to his dungeon and aided in his escape plot. And then, of course, she ran away the very next night to join her beloved Imp, leaving her husband, the handsome golden lion, a shamed cuckold.

There had been no sign of a struggle and no one to witness what occurred- just an absolute disappearance, silent and flawless. The gossip swirled among the guards and maidservants- some claimed that she'd left Jaime a note of apology and farewell, others said that she made off with all of the Lannister jewels that she'd been given at her wedding, still others that she'd been dabbling in the occult and had vanished through the use of sorcery.

The Beauty and the Imp proved a vexing and inconvenient pair of folk heroes, but Cersei felt reasonably confident that the sum of money offered for their bounty would be enough to sway even the most romantic of sympathizers.

Jaime claimed to know absolutely nothing about his wife's whereabouts- claimed it again and again and again, no matter how many times Cersei asked. Her nails dug deep into her palms as she faced him, summoning every bit of restraint left to her to keep from launching her fist into his nose, into the area near the bridge where it had been recently broken, the bump that changed his entire profile so that it no longer really resembled hers at all.

At the end of an especially circuitous conversation on the subject, Jaime raised his eyebrows and said in an infuriatingly casual manner, "My wife has left me for our brother, and I'm now the kingdom's most pitiful figure. The sisterly thing to do would be to let me drink away my sorrows in peace, wouldn't you agree?"

She gritted her teeth, stared hard into his eyes.  _You're lying, you must be..._ Cersei searched the green depths of her brother's eyes, expecting to discover the truth within, just as she always had- a repulsive, alarming shiver clenched at her back when she encountered only blankness.

_If I cannot read him anymore..._

For all of his evasiveness, Jaime did dispel one of the myths about Sansa's escape: the girl took nothing with her. Not her clothing, not her cloak, certainly not the Lannister jewels- when Jaime returned to his bedchamber after the vigil, he found everything exactly as he'd left it, with only the conspicuous absence of his wife.

But, of course, Cersei had to see for herself.  _It's impossible, that she could have disappeared without a trace - there must be something here, something that these fools have missed._

Tingling with a sense of purpose, she waited for Jaime to depart for the training yards, accompanied by that aurochs from the Stormlands that he insisted on keeping around. He spent an inordinate amount of time with the homely knight, more than ever since Sansa's departure. Cersei's lips curled, more in a grimace than a smile, when she thought about the other songs, the ruder ones, featuring the Kingslayer and his burly new mistress.  _House Lannister has become a laughingstock once again._ She thought on the stories she'd heard of her grandfather, of the shame that her father had worked tirelessly to destroy, and she felt her stomach grow heavy.

Cersei pushed open the heavy door and entered her brother's apartments. There was the solar, filled with training equipment and maps and the occasional book, strewn about in the haphazard manner that was Jaime's tendency. A slip of weathered parchment caught under her heel; she plucked it from the floor and found a note in Sansa's meticulous hand, instructing Jaime to change the bandages on a scrape he'd received on his shoulder-blade. As she proceeded through the solar into the dressing chambers, Cersei found a number of similar letters scattered throughout. Some were Sansa's, but an equal number were written in the wobbly scrawl that now passed for Jaime's handwriting. Notes of reminder, notes of jest, notes of flirtation, notes about nothing at all- Cersei clenched her fists around the parchment pieces, her head aching as she thought on what she'd found.

She knew, of course, that Jaime was growing fond of the girl, in the way that he might be fond of a lost little puppy-dog. But the air between them always felt so strained, so fraught and uncomfortable and  _difficult-_ nothing to suggest the simple communication of these letters, the warmth building behind the closed doors of their chambers.  _Well, perhaps not_ _ **nothing**_ _..._ she scowled at the memory of a sunny afternoon one moon past, when she'd heard merry voices in a normally-vacant corridor. She turned a corner to investigate and beheld Tommen, sitting on a dirty stone floor with several kittens crawling over his lap and shoulders, chatting with two figures silhouetted against a large window. As she moved closer, she saw Jaime perched on one side of the wide windowsill, Sansa's legs draped over his lap, rubbing her ankles with his left hand as he laughed and smiled at the boy king. And the girl herself, holding a grey kitten to her chest, her face relaxed and soft and quite nearly happy-

Given the choice, she would have much preferred to come upon the two of them fucking in an archway.

The Queen Regent entered Sansa's dressing chamber and immediately set to work, opening wardrobes and chests, sifting through jewelry boxes, running an inventory in her mind of the clothing she'd seen Sansa wear in the past-

_Gods, she did not even bring her shoes._

Cersei rather liked puzzles; when she lived in the Tower of the Hand with her father, they would sit together sometimes and play riddle games, games meant to stimulate the mind. A knot started to form in her throat at the memory, and she choked it down, replacing sadness with frustration.  _She's not this clever, Tyrion's not this clever, Jaime is_ _ **certainly**_ _not this clever._

Finally, her search led her into the bedchamber. While most married couples of high rank kept separate sleeping quarters, Cersei had very deliberately offered Jaime and Sansa only one bedroom, only one bed. The original suggestion had been Lord Tywin's, in the interest of speeding along the production of a Lannister heir. She recalled the furrow in Jaime's brow when he realized what was happening, remembered raising her eyebrows and waiting, just waiting for him to object-

But he never did. Oh, Jaime could be willful too, and he'd sooner force himself to grow used to sleeping with the girl at his side than humble himself by requesting separate chambers.

_And it was not so difficult growing used to it, was it, brother?_

While Cersei enjoyed logic puzzles and strategy puzzles, she had no fondness for emotional puzzles, and she felt quite exhausted sometimes when she tried to parse through her thoughts on Jaime's marriage. She'd been so  _satisfied_ with it all at first, for so many reasons- her father's approval, the chance to make her twin feel what she'd felt, when she'd been handed to Robert Baratheon quite without her consent, the opportunity to punish him for his constant, galling, perplexing  _insolence.._.

But then she'd think sometimes:  _Who punishes a man by placing a beautiful, young, high-born maiden in his bed?_

She was growing hot and angry again, and she needed to clear her head and return to her task. Cersei stepped to the window casement and hurriedly opened the glass panes, breathing in the bracing chill of the air.

A trunk rested on the floor beneath the windowsill. She knelt to open it, nearly smiled when she realized what it was: Sansa's little hope chest.

She removed each item one by one: more of those ridiculous, frilly nightdresses; a few sheer veils, meant to be worn beneath a circlet; a lace slip that might have been modest enough at the time of her wedding, but which would surely cling too tight and end too soon now-

Beneath the undergarments lurked a more private collection, one so infused with desperate longing that Cersei nearly hesitated to touch: the baby blankets and swaddling clothes. Each item carefully fashioned, perfect little stitches over the grey and white material, forming patterns of running wolves and winter roses.

Beneath the embarrassing wealth of Stark clothes- enough to outfit an entire litter of wolf cubs- Cersei discovered a single blanket of scarlet wool, with a beautifully-crafted golden lion embroidered into the fabric.

Her breath hitched in her throat as she tentatively lifted the blanket and draped it over her lap, fingertips tracing the outline of the lion. As a child, she'd had a blanket almost exactly like this one, sewn by her mother when she and Jaime were only infants. Even after she outgrew the desire to sleep with it, she kept it among her belongings, and it was the first piece of fabric used to swaddle Joffrey after his birth.

She'd been proud, the day her son declared himself too old to sleep with a baby blanket, and she suggested that he pass it along to his sister. But Joffrey flew into a rage at that notion, choosing instead to fling the crimson cloth into the blazing hearth. Cersei had leaped from her chair with a cry, but there was nothing to do for it- she could only watch as the lion's proud visage disintegrated under the flames.

And yet she could summon no anger toward Joff- that was just his way, her bold, brash little princeling. When he fell, her beautiful golden boy, she'd wept until no tears remained to her, a dark cavern opening inside her body, plunging deeper and deeper- and then the rage, the desire to dig her nails into Tyrion's hideous face and slash until she saw only red, the desire to clench her hand around Sansa's slim white throat and squeeze until her blue eyes went dull. She had them locked away, the vile little troll in the dungeons and the trembling little wraith in the tower, she implored Father to try them both, but he told her no, no, she's only a weak and stupid little girl, she knows not what she does, and she's too valuable to destroy...

Cersei had no choice but to free the frightened damsel from her tower prison, but she never stopped watching. And as she watched, she found herself less and less able to define what it  _was_ about Sansa Stark, why she felt so drawn to her and yet repulsed by her, why she wanted to cradle her against her breast and dash the life out of her all at once, how she could fear and envy and want and hate and care...

She sat cross-legged on the floor, head against the wall, and felt it coming again. There were more and more days like this of late, days when the darkness would seep in through every orifice, when the fire inside her flickered and waned, the desperation and momentum giving way to despair.

_She is gone. She is gone, and I'll not find her._ No one else even cared to look- Jaime seemed completely disinclined to search for her, as did the Tyrells. And now that Uncle Kevan was arriving to replace his brother as Hand of the King- condescending, useless Uncle Kevan- she'd have even less support-

And so here she was, facing threats from within- Margaery Tyrell, so pretty and charming and very, very hungry, surrounded by powerful friends and family and working tirelessly to court Tommen's favor- and threats from without- every day a new story about the Targaryen girl across the sea, supposedly the fairest woman in the world, the liberator of the weak and the literal Mother of Dragons-

And, perhaps most alarming of all, the silent threat, the threat that could be anywhere- the vanishing girl, the winter rose growing bolder and lovelier by the day, the girl who dared look upon the Lion Queen with pity in her eyes-

_Girls, girls everywhere. Not even full women yet, just an abundance of stripling queens-_

And then a chill, deeper and more terrifying than any that had come before-

**"** _...until there comes another, younger and more beautiful..."_

Cersei bit down hard on her lip, pulled the lion blanket over her face- she nearly choked on the thick scent of juniper, the weird sylvan fragrance that followed Sansa everywhere.

_I wanted to be in her, but now she's in me- I'll see her in every shadow, around every corner, whenever the light is too bright or my sight too weak-_

She recognized the spiral, had experienced it often enough in recent days- she wrapped her arms around her knees and pressed herself against the wall, waiting for it to pass.

And it would pass. She would rise again as Cersei Lannister, Lady of Casterly Rock, Dowager Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, the hot blood of battle flowing through her veins.

But in that moment, as she sat quiet and curled into a ball, visions of young girls, beautiful girls, deadly girls rushing through her head-

She felt so very tired of fighting.


	15. Chapter 15

The Stark words, usually spoken in the South with derision, sometimes even twisted into crude, rude japes, now proved incontrovertibly true. There had been a persistent chill in the air for weeks, growing sharper and harsher by the day. But in the Red Keep, Sansa had thick woolen shawls, a large hearth in her chambers, her husband's body to keep her bed warm.

Now she lay on a pile of straw, wrapped in swaths of burlap and a few ancient, mildewed furs. The wagon bumped down stony roads, and she felt her stomach shift and squelch. But she forced herself to hold it down, knowing from experience that the wagon wouldn't stop, no matter how ill she became. One long day sitting in the darkness with the smell of vomit surrounding her had taught her all too well.

The men who came for her were quick, efficient, and completely unfamiliar. They wore heavy cloaks with hoods that all but obscured their faces, and while their behavior toward her was taciturn and stern, there was no animosity in their silence. She wondered briefly whether they were the Faceless Men of whom she'd heard tell, but then she realized how silly that idea was; the Faceless were assassins, and if she'd been placed in their custody, she'd surely be dead by now. As they stole past the gates of King's Landing, one of the men handed Sansa a piece of parchment, which she waited to read until they'd put some distance between them and the city walls.

The letter was brief, concise, written in a flourishing hand and pressed shut with a mockingbird seal. She scanned the words and learned that she was en route to the Vale, under the protection of Petyr Baelish.

_Petyr Baelish...strange._ The former Master of Coin had paid her little attention since her second Lannister wedding; he was pleasant and courteous enough, to be sure, but he never attempted to engage her in conversation. The only exception occurred one night two moons past, when the Lannister family and a handful of courtiers retired to a sitting room after evening meal. Lord Baelish began to ask the group a selection of riddles, none of which Sansa had heard before. And yet she answered them all more quickly than anyone else; she shuddered when she recalled the cold glint in Cersei's eyes and its perfect match in Lord Tywin's.

(Jaime only laughed and patted her shoulder, lamenting the fact that there had been no wager placed on the outcome of the game.)

When everyone rose to retire for the evening, Lord Baelish approached Sansa and asked her how she'd guessed the answers to each riddle. She tried to explain, tried to parse through her thought process as best she could. Littlefinger only tilted his head and listened, and when she was through, he declared:

"You're quite a clever girl, you know."

That surprised Sansa; she'd grown so used to Joffrey and Cersei telling her how very stupid she was. No one had ever called her clever before- pretty and gentle and sweet and accomplished, but never clever. She felt her cheeks grow warm, not with embarrassment, but with a flushed sort of pride.

She remembered hearing that Lord Baelish planned to wed her Aunt Lysa; the latter was one of her only surviving relatives, and she supposed it did make some sense, that she'd find refuge in her home. And yet she couldn't ignore the uneasy memories of whispers between her mother and father, whispers about poor addled Lysa, poor fragile Lysa, poor peculiar Lysa...

_She can't be worse than Cersei._

The journey passed uneventfully; Sansa couldn't help being impressed by the facile way that her companions moved from town to town, gathering supplies as needed but never stopping in one place for too long. But she was rarely permitted to leave the wagon- only a couple of times a day to pass water. She felt her legs weakening from disuse, knew that her skin must be snow-white from lack of sun exposure- and Gods, the nausea, the hideous sickness that never seemed to end.

At last, the tiny caravan halted, and one of the men wrapped Sansa in a dusty carpet and slung her over his shoulder. They entered the Eyrie in the dead of night, through a tiny back staircase that led into a vertiginous tower. Too languished to speak or move, Sansa let her body go as limp as a cloth doll's, her head and arms bumping against the man's bony back with every step up the stairs.

The thump of her body landing on stone, a pull to unwrap the carpet, and Sansa found herself sprawled on the floor of a dim chamber, looking up at the figure of a woman.

Lysa Tully Arryn peered down at her niece, blue eyes small and glassy within her plump face. She blinked, tilted her head, spoke in a tone that made Sansa's skin prickle- artificially high-pitched, bizarrely complacent-

"My goodness, child. You do look a fright."

Lysa lowered herself into an armchair and waited for Sansa to find the strength to rise to her feet, but made no effort to help her. Sansa felt her legs tremble as she stood before her aunt, a woman she hadn't seen since earliest childhood. She brushed a hand over her hair to clear out the dust and bits of straw, and her voice came in a clumsy mumble:

"My lady aunt...I thank you for...I know that this must be a terrible imposition-"

The Lady of the Vale scoffed before replying, "Petyr would never ask unless it was important. And how could I refuse to help dear Cat's little daughter?"

There was something in the glint of her eyes and the lilt in her voice that Sansa immediately misliked, but she only nodded and continued to murmur her thanks.

Lysa stood and waddled to the far wall of her chamber. A light push on the stones revealed a concealed door, leading to a tiny, windowless room. "We'll have to keep you in here for the time being. Petyr made it very clear that no one can know where you are, not until he arrives."

Sansa peered into the narrow space- barely more than a cupboard, really- and felt her stomach churn again.  _It's like the room in the tower, the room where they locked me up, where I thought I was going to die..._

"And...when might that be, my lady?"

A misty glaze passed over Lysa's eyes, and she breathed a strange, sentimental sigh- "Soon. Very, very soon."

Lysa granted Sansa the use of her bathing chamber- although she paced and tapped in obvious impatience, which made the experience less than relaxing. When she was through, she clothed herself in a hand-me-down nightdress of Lysa's, one that absolutely dwarfed her in its voluminous folds.

Before she disappeared behind the hidden door, Sansa felt Lysa's hand in her damp hair; she looked her aunt in the eye, quailed a bit at the intensity of her stare, tried not to think how strongly it reminded her of Cersei's.

"You look so like her." Lysa tightened her grasp on Sansa's hair, nearly pulling the auburn strands. The younger woman held fast, in spite of her desire to recoil. And then an abrupt release and a saccharine smile- "Sleep well, little niece."

But while Sansa was no stranger to restless nights and reluctant slumber, she truly believed that she'd never slept so poorly in her life. The impenetrable darkness of the chamber should have made it easy, but it had the opposite effect; she'd stir and think that her eyes were open, but only the tiny clicks of her eyelids when she blinked could serve as proof. Open or shut, the blackness was the same either way: thick and smothering and invasive. Sansa would curl on her side, tight into a little ball with her arms folded over her head, afraid to expose her body lest the darkness seep in through every orifice.

With no window, she could not measure time- she could have been lying on this uncomfortable cot for hours or days or weeks, she'd not know the difference. Once her eyes adjusted a bit, she discovered a chamber pot, a small pile of threadbare linens, and a flagon of water. She guzzled the water greedily, and when she found herself parched sometime later, she cursed her impatience and hoped that Lysa would open the door soon to deliver provisions.

Unfortunately, the Lady of the Vale seemed to lack a proper sense of time herself. The door to Sansa's chamber could not be opened from within, and Lysa possessed the only key. But much to Sansa's horror and surprise, Lysa would frequently forget her entirely, letting hours and possibly days pass without sending in food or water. She scratched at the stone until her fingernails broke, she wished to scream and holler until someone came in to help her- but the fear of alienating her aunt, the fear of being sent back to King's Landing to face whatever Cersei planned next-

Finally, an elderly maidservant, at least as aged as Old Nan and significantly more senile, entered with a tray of foodstuffs. Sansa devoured everything in obscene haste, but quickly realized her stomach's inability to handle dense fruitcake and clotted cream; she vomited all over the floor. The maidservant tried to gather her in her bony arms and pat her back as if she were an infant who'd spewed a bit of milk- Sansa separated herself and used her tiny collection of linens to clean up, all the while pretending to listen to the old woman's barely-coherent babbling. When she finished, she asked whether she might have fresh linens; the crone just patted her hair and stretched her face into a toothless grin.

"You'll have all you need in the Land of Fae, little lamb. They'll come for you soon, they'll spirit you away into the woods, and you'll be a princess there..."

She began to lose track of her own delusion, combining riddles and fairy stories until her speech slurred and her head nodded forward. Sansa hoped for a moment that she might fall into slumber entirely; she'd left the door open, and Sansa's heart pounded wildly at the prospect of spending some time alone in Lysa's sunny apartments. But alas, the old woman roused herself and exited, taking the light with her.

There was no consistency to the temperature of the chamber. Sometimes the lack of ventilation would render it stiflingly, oppressively hot. And other times, like this one, the chill seeping through the stone walls would attack her from every side, until her trembling threatened to pulverize her bones. Sansa wrapped her thin woolen blanket tight around her and nearly welcomed the heat of the tears streaming down her cheeks. She silently cursed stupid, daft Lysa...cursed the mysterious and still-absent Lord Baelish...and most of all, she cursed Jaime.

_You got me out of King's Landing, but for what? For this? To waste away in a hole in the wall of a frozen castle with only a madwoman and a walking corpse for company?_

Her thoughts spiraled into a dark, bitter abyss. In a terrifying burst of inspiration, she found herself wondering whether it was all some sinister plot, whether Baelish and Jaime were in league with Cersei to destroy her, not on the steps of the Sept of Baelor, but in this vacant, silent place where no one would hear her scream.

She sat in the dark, seething and weeping, letting evil suspicions seize her brain and deepen her despair- but then she'd think of sunny mornings lying in Jaime's arms, his lips soft against her temple...she'd think of reaching her hand into her cloak and discovering silly notes in sloppy handwriting, notes that made her blush and giggle until the Queen Regent's ladies started to stare...she'd think of fierce green eyes and the firm clasp of a left hand in her right and earnest, ardent promises...

_It can't have all been a charade. He doesn't...he couldn't hate me that much._

One night, as she shuddered beneath her blanket and passed in and out of shallow sleep, Sansa felt a hand brushing the side of her face, stroking her hair back behind her ears. She grained toward the warmth and felt a little smile tug at her lips- "Jaime," she breathed.

But then a cold sting of metal against her neck; her eyes flew open, and she dropped her jaw to scream- then a snip, followed by silence.

Lysa stood beside her cot, silhouetted in the faint candlelight spilling in from her chamber. She held a pair of shears in one hand, and in the other...Sansa's hand flew to her hair, and when she felt the bluntness beneath her fingers, the missing chunk on one side...

Her aunt began to shake her head before whispering in that uncanny, girlish chirp- "It serves you right, Cat- Mother keeps telling you to pin your hair up, and you keep wearing it down...it's wanton and vain, don't you know?"

Sansa felt the blood draining from her face as she replied-

"Sansa. My name is Sansa."

Something flickered in Lysa's eyes, a flash of lucidity, but then she was gone, slamming the door, the long hank of auburn hair still wrapped around her fleshy hand.

The icy sensation dropping into Sansa's stomach had little to do with cold.  _This is real madness. Not Cersei and her paranoia, not my little episodes and experiments..._

_Oh Gods, my_ _**hair** _ _..._

While Sansa had long ago realized the uselessness of vanity, she had found a perverse sort of pleasure in keeping her hair unbound at court, letting the loose waves fall nearly to her backside, rejecting the braids and coils that were the fashion in the South. She knew that she could command attention simply by entering a room and letting everyone register the sight of her; flaming hair against white skin and ice-blue eyes, without elaborate fripperies or gaudy jewels to distract from her remote, glacial beauty. When she walked into the Great Hall at the end of the Queen Regent's train, Sansa noticed gazes landing on her long before they moved to Cersei, and she could not help but feel a bit victorious.

She clenched her fist in the short, prickly pieces of hair still clinging to her scalp as another memory came upon her-

_Jaime's chest rising and falling beneath her cheek as he draws his hand through her hair. Fingers catch in the curls, again and again, stroking and twisting; he suddenly gives a little tug, and she laughs._

" _Have you ever been North of the Wall?" she asks, her fingertips lightly dancing over the smattering of tawny hair on his chest._

_His laughter rumbles beneath her head. "As I've no real desire to freeze to death while being mauled by direwolves and savages at the same time...no, I have not."_

_A little poke to his sternum, and Sansa continues- "My Uncle Benjen used to tell us stories about the wildlings who live there...he said that they consider red hair very lucky, especially on women. 'Kissed by fire,' they call it."_

" _Fire, indeed." He pulls her hair again, and she turns her face up to look at him. "I'd have to agree with them on that point- you gingers are a hot-blooded lot."_

" _Hmm." She turns her head to press a kiss to his throat as she moves her leg to rest between his; she can feel him hardening against her thigh._

" _Redheads were scarce in Casterly Rock...I don't think I ever saw one before I went to squire at Crakehall." He begins to trail his hand down her back, and she shivers in anticipation- "There was a girl there...just a servant girl, a few years older than me. Very pretty, in a common sort of way- and her hair was like yours." He cups his palm over her hip and drops a kiss on the crown of her head as she hums contentedly. "But she always wore it up, twisted at the back of her head. The other squires used to go and spy on the servant girls when they went behind the barns to bathe...I went with them only once, because I wanted to see her take-"_

" _Stop!" Sansa begins to dissolve into giggles, delivering a light slap to Jaime's shoulder. He draws his hand back up and grips her chin, forcing her face out from the crook of his neck._

" _Her hair down, Sansa. I wanted to see her take her hair down." His lips spread into a slightly-lopsided grin, and she feels her stomach do an eager little flip. "What did you think I was going to say?"_

" _I don't know. Something vulgar."_

_He laughs and draws her over him until her knees rest on either side of his hips. "Gods, for such a little lady, your mind does go to some surprising places."_

_Before she can come up with something indignant to say, he pulls her face down for a kiss, sliding his hand back into her thick, wild, fiery hair-_

Sansa cried, just a little, embarrassed that something so insignificant could do so much to weaken her spirit. She threw the blanket over her head and kept her hands folded on the outside, willing herself to stop fussing with the shorn ends.  _It's gone, there's nothing to do for it now._

The next morning, Lysa opened the door and drew Sansa into her chamber. The light assaulted her eyes, and she squinted hard to relieve the pain; her aunt had to take her shoulders and steer her into the bright room.

This was a different Lysa than Sansa had encountered before; more settled, more clear, more of this world. She immediately launched into a string of effusive apologies, again and again and again, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry"-

She guided Sansa to sit on a pouf before a large looking glass, and she withdrew the shears from a drawer.

"Now just stay still, sweetling- it shan't hurt at all, and it will be better to keep it all at one length...it will grow back, don't you worry..."

Sansa kept her eyes shut tight, couldn't bear to look- at last, she felt Lysa move away from her and heard her place the shears down.

Her eyelids felt heavy as lead as she reluctantly opened them-

The sight of her reflection with its close-cropped hair caused a rise of bile in her throat, caused a tightness in her chest and a stinging pain behind her eyes-

_I look just like Robb._

She endured the continued apologies from Lysa, which grew more and more anxious with each repetition. She assured her aunt- lying as neatly as she could- that no, she wasn't cross, and yes, she knew that the hair would grow back, just as pretty as before-

Lysa finally allowed Sansa to retreat back into her little room, much to the girl's relief.

_Is this what it's like, to look at your own face and see someone else?_ Of course, she and Robb were not Jaime and Cersei, had been nothing like Jaime and Cersei-

_But if anything should happen to her, will Jaime feel this kind of emptiness, this kind of loss when he catches his reflection in the mirror?_

Her arms encircled her knees, and she tried to pull her body tightly into itself, hoping that she might crush the rapidly-blossoming pain in her chest-

_Old Nan's tales of spectres and wights were nothing but silly, superstitious fancy- these are the real ghost stories._

She fell against the stone wall and stared out into the blackness, and she remembered-

_She props her head on one hand while using the other to trace the lines of Jaime's face. Her fingers brush across his forehead, trail down to the defined cheekbones, skim over the strong jaw. He's pretending to sleep, but she can see his lips twitching with pent-up laughter._

_Her index finger lands on the bridge of his nose, and she rubs the tip over the one flaw that she finds. A bump, small but distinct, interrupts the straight downward slope; obviously the result of a break._

_One green eye opens, and he peers at her with bemusement._

" _How did this happen?" she asks, the pad of her fingertip still resting on his nose._

_Jaime fully abandons the pretense of slumber and opens both eyes. He huffs a little sigh, and she notices the tightening of his jaw when he replies, "Your brother's men were responsible for that."_

_She removes her hand, bites her lip. "...Oh." Absurd as it seems, she forgets sometimes that he'd gone to war with her brother, that he'd spent time as Robb's hostage._

" _Did Robb fight you?" And a part of her desperately hopes that he will answer in the affirmative- she wants to validate the idea she's formed of Robb in his last months of life: strong and powerful and courageous, the Young Wolf, the King in the North..._

" _Not personally, no." Sansa feels a little sinking within her, one that must be clear in the slump of her shoulder and bowing of her head. Jaime moves away from her- he's annoyed, she can tell-_

" _You've never asked to hear about this before now."_

_There's a chill in his voice, and she shivers._

" _I never wanted to know about it."_

" _And now?"_

_Her face twists into a scowl, for she finds that she does not like this, not here, not while she's naked with her husband in her marriage bed- it's easier to keep things simple here, and she has no real desire to do the work of reconciling the man with the soft touches and gentle kisses with the man who has brutally slaughtered hundreds, who would have gladly plunged his sword into Robb's chest if he hadn't been taken prisoner first-_

_But the subject is in the air now. She looks over at Jaime, registers the tension in his shoulders and the narrowing of his eyes- he is on the defensive, and some perverse part of her wants to give him the fight he's expecting-_

_But when she thinks of Jaime facing Robb and his forces in battle, she has only one question:_

" _When my brother...when you saw him with his troops, did they respect...did they see him..." She loses her words and swallows in an effort to bring them back into her throat- "Was he..."_

" _Was he a leader, you mean?"_

_She cannot look at him, but she nods._

" _He was a boy, thrust into a situation far beyond his level of readiness or experience." Sansa feels a hot flush of loyal rage, and she prepares to retort, but he speaks before she can- "But from what I saw, he was bold and brave and much loved by his men."_

_She does not realize that she's trembling until she feels the warm pressure of Jaime's hand on her shoulder._

_They sit silently like that for a time, until Jaime tightens his grip on her shoulder and says in a voice quiet and low-_

" _He'd have made a good king."_

_Her breathing grows laborious and irregular as she fights to keep from crying- but Jaime notices. He pulls until she falls into his shoulder, whispering in her ear- "Cry if you want to. There's no one to hear."_

_And so she does._

It may have been guilt or loneliness or just one of her aunt's eccentric whims, but something suddenly motivated Lysa to release the girl from her windowless cell on a fairly regular basis. While this would have thrilled Sansa prior to the mishap with her hair, she now thought that she'd prefer to spend her days sitting alone in the dark.

These afternoons-  _Mornings? Evenings? It is so hard to tell..._ were never exactly unpleasant; the women would sit on Lysa's bed, where the Lady of the Vale would feast on sugared plums and mince tarts while Sansa hesitantly picked at the edge of a lemon cake- the nausea, the damnable nausea just grew worse every day.

When Lysa was feeling particularly blithe, she'd try to engage her niece in insipid, giggly gossip- Sansa found herself reminded of Margaery's twittering little birds. But Lysa had no need to even put on a pretense of delicacy; she often interspersed her talk with lewd stories that made Sansa's cheeks glow crimson.

After one such occasion, Lysa shook her head and said with an impatient laugh,

"You're as prim as a septa, little one. No need to put on airs- there are no maidens here, after all." Her tone spiked a bit higher, to a pitch that Sansa recognized as the harbinger of a mood change- "Jaime Lannister. Our fathers wished us to wed, did you know?"

Sansa thought back to her conversation in the dungeons with Tyrion, and she nodded. "I heard something of that, yes."

"Such a handsome man. When he was young, he was positively pretty, pretty as a girl...but fierce, too." Lysa popped another plum in her mouth and spoke as she chewed- "He came to visit Riverrun, and Father seated me beside him at every meal and bid me dance with him as often as possible." Sansa noticed a darkening in her aunt's eyes, and she hoped beyond hope that it was just a trick of the light. "But Cat was there too, of course. And oh, did he like her. Him and everyone else."

Sansa felt a flutter of panic in her chest- mentions of her mother never, ever ended well here.

But Lysa only frowned, shrugged, moved onto another point. "Frankly, pretty men aren't really to my taste. So entitled...and I'm told that they've no interest in bringing pleasure to their lovers, so long as they get it for themselves." She grinned at Sansa, her mouth stretching so wide that it appeared nearly grotesque. "You'll have to tell me if that's true. Did your pretty husband bother to pleasure you?"

Sansa knew that it was her embarrassment that Lysa wanted, and she gave it freely- a thorough blush, a lowering of the shoulders, a meek, squeaking little reply.

Her aunt reached behind her and lifted her brush from a small table. She fixed Sansa with a penitent stare and bade her turn around.

"It will look prettier when we comb it out...then when Petyr comes, I'll send for ribbons, and we'll tie your hair into bows. Won't that be nice?"

"Yes, my lady," she whispered. The gentleness of Lysa's hands surprised her; she could almost imagine herself back in her mother's chambers at Winterfell, sitting on the side of the bed while Lady Catelyn's combed her locks again and again until they crackled and shone.

"I always wished for a daughter," Lysa sighed wistfully. "My Sweetrobin is the light of all my days...but it would be nice to have a little girl, to dress her and brush her hair and make her pretty, like a little doll." She paused to replace the wide paddle brush with a finer comb, which she used to shape the uneven licks of auburn hair into tidy curls. "Perhaps when Petyr and I are wed, I'll bear him a beautiful daughter as well as a healthy son."

"Gods grant it, my lady," Sansa replied. Lysa's fingers, unexpectedly quick and clever, felt so pleasant on the tender skin of her scalp, and she let her eyes flutter shut.

As she drifted into a relatively relaxed state, she heard her aunt say,

"While we're on the subject, Sansa, you must make more of an effort to eat. You've grown entirely too skinny, and it isn't good for a breeding woman to deprive herself so."

Sansa jerked her head, sharply enough to make Lysa drop the comb. As the older woman bent to retrieve it, tsk-tsking all the way, the girl replied, "That's not possible, my lady. I...I am barren."

Lysa stood upright and resumed her combing. She met Sansa's eyes in the mirror and tilted her head, her voice impossibly casual:

"Oh, I don't think so, child."

Her mind spun everywhere at once- the nausea, the aching...when was her last moonblood?

_Gods be good, what sort of a cruel jape is this?_

She began to laugh- a savage, shrieking sound. She laughed until her muscles ached, laughed and shook her head and pounded her palms on the vanity table over and over again.

And if she were an outside observer peering in at these two figures, there would be no doubt in her mind about which was the madwoman.


	16. Chapter 16

A raucous clang of metal on stone echoed through the courtyard, far louder than Jaime would have anticipated, but he scarcely even flinched. Brienne, however, gave a jolt of surprise, nearly dropping her own sword, and looked Jaime in the eye with a focus that had been missing throughout their entire training session. Her brows knit together with confusion, but Jaime only glared back in silence. Finally, he managed to hiss-

"You aren't even trying."

Brienne's pretty blue eyes grew wide at that, adopting a baleful expression that put Jaime in mind of a torpid she-cow. She sheathed her sword and sighed- he only crossed his arms over his chest and tapped the fingers of his left hand on his right bicep, glowering all the while. These meetings with Brienne in the courtyard, these hours spent clashing steel against steel and drowning out everything else- he needed this, he relished this...and yet his opponent never quite seemed  _there_. She went through the motions, and he knew her more than capable of keeping up with him (more than capable of besting him, if he forced himself to be honest), but she persisted with this sluggish, half-hearted movement, her ugly face alternately blank and sullen.

She sighed again, and he rolled his eyes. "Well? Out with it, wench. What's the trouble?"

"I-"Words weren't Brienne's strong suit, and Jaime knew it well. But his blood was boiling for a fight- a fight of  _any_ kind. He took a step in her direction, jaw set and eyes sharp, fingers still drumming out his impatience on the leather of his surcoat.

But then she continued her thought, and he felt a little pang of pity at the simple words- "I hate it here."

Jaime replied with a dry laugh, but stopped when he noted the flash of hurt in her eyes. "Everyone hates it here. You're hardly alone in that."

She twisted her lips and shifted her weight from side to side. Jaime bent to retrieve his sword, which he sheathed before gesturing to a stone bench in the corner. He waited for Brienne to sit before lowering himself down- she obviously had more to say; her mouth kept twitching and the color in her cheeks kept changing: ruddy one moment, ashen the next.

"I just...I don't have any purpose here anymore. As long as she was here, I could at least make myself useful by keeping an eye-" Jaime lifted his brows, and Brienne fell silent. The air between them felt suddenly tremulous and awkward-  _Gods, I never know whether I want to curse those bards and minstrels or fall to my knees and kiss their feet._

"You can say her name, Brienne. No need to worry about wounding the poor cuckold's feelings." He offered her a half-smile, which it took her several moments to return.

"As long as I had...Sansa...in my sight, I almost felt like- I could almost convince myself that I hadn't failed Lady Catelyn. But now-"

Brienne lowered her face, nearly obscuring it from Jaime's view, but he caught a glimpse of something shining in her eyes, something that could well have been tears. At once, he felt a rush of impulse-  _What if I told her? She's trustworthy, she's proven that much...but then,_ _ **what**_ _would I tell her? 'Sansa's...somewhere...under the protection of...someone...no, I don't know where she is or who she's with...' She'd be furious- at least I'd get a proper fight out of the wench then..._

"Well, think of it this way,"he began, shifting a bit closer to her on the bench. "King's Landing is a miserable cesspool of a snake-pit. There isn't a place in the Seven Kingdoms more foul or poisonous. We can agree on that, yes?" He waited for Brienne to give a jerky nod, then continued- "So wherever Sansa's gone, it can't really be worse than here, can it?"  _This is what I tell myself, anyhow._

Brienne scowled in silence, and Jaime wondered for a moment whether he'd get that fight after all. But her face soon drooped into a melancholy frown, and she spoke in a tone to match. "That may be true. But in any case, there's nothing for me to do here anymore. And the Tyrells...Gods, Jaime, they hate me so- they've never forgiven me for what happened to Renly. Between that and those horrible songs-" Her blush deepened to an alarming shade of violet, one that Jaime had only seen before on hanged men-  _and on Sansa._

"So why not leave?" As soon as the words left his mouth, Jaime felt a twinge of panic-  _don't go, wench, don't leave me here with these dolts and climbers and the beautiful golden queen, the greatest fool of them all-_

"There's nowhere for me to go. I can't go back home...there's nothing for me there, either." The small wave of relief that washed over Jaime was immediately tempered by the despair writ across Brienne's homely face. "I just...I feel like I'm-"

"..rattling around like a single kernel in a dry husk, aimless and in the way and completely damned useless?"

Brienne lifted her head and looked Jaime in the eye, her jaw slightly slack with surprise as she nodded. Jaime rose from the bench and clapped his hand on her shoulder- he wanted to follow the statement with some phrase of encouragement, but he could only think of one thing to say:

"I know the feeling."

A series of pats on Brienne's shoulder, then he removed his hand and turned on his heel, striding away toward the Red Keep. Restlessness coursed through his limbs, and the idea of sitting through a council session made him want to thrash against the walls and scream until his throat went raw. This sort of pent-up energy, this lion-in-a-cage anxiety- it came upon him often and entirely without warning. These were the nights when he'd grasp at Sansa with desperation, tearing at her shift and gripping her too tight, moving against her and in her too fast and too hard- she'd been frightened at first, and he'd leave their bed the next morning with a heavy stone of guilt and disgust sitting in the pit of his stomach. But at some point along the way, she started to match his fierceness- she'd push back against him, coiling her arms around his neck and pulling him close, grasping and panting and frantic and beautiful. And the flash of her eyes, the glint of candlelight on her sharp white teeth-  _the blood of the wolf._

This train of thought only served to string his nerves even tighter, and he threw his shoulder hard against the door to the council chamber, appreciating both the dull pain and the sound of the door's collision against the back wall.

For the first time ever, he found himself early for the session; the hall was empty except for Tommen, still so small in that big chair, his elbow on the table, his curly head slumped into his hand.

"Well met, Your Grace,"he called from the doorway, and the little boy gave a jolting start, whipping his head around to stare at the entrance. When he recognized Jaime, he gave a wan little smile.

Jaime strode over to the boy-king, trying to force his tone into one of good humor. "You're quite punctual today- your mother will be well pleased."

Tommen sighed and shrugged. "Lessons ended early. The other children are playing out in the yards, but the maester said I couldn't go with them. He said I'd get dirty, and I can't sit in council with dirty clothes."

_When Robert Baratheon bothered to attend councils, he'd do it with wine spilling down his doublet and a serving maid on one knee._ Jaime seated himself beside the King and patted the child on the shoulder. "This shouldn't go too long. You'll be able to join the others in the yard before it gets dark."

When Margaery Tyrell had suggested that Tommen take his lessons with the other court children, Cersei had protested vehemently- the King should be educated privately, it would be unseemly for him to spend too much time mingling with children below his station. But the young Queen's argument had been sound: Tommen would need these children one day, these sons and daughters of lords and high-ranking knights, his future allies and vassals. Jaime had spoken in favor of Margaery, and they'd won out in the end- Cersei refused to even look at her twin for days afterward.

A peculiar squirming in Tommen's lap caught Jaime's attention. He lifted the cloth of the table to find a grey kitten on the boy's knee, tiny claws kneading the fabric of his breeches.

Tommen blushed sheepishly. "Don't tell Mother- North Star's just been so lonely since Sansa left."

"I shan't say a word,"Jaime promised. He reached over to rub the cat's downy head, then lowered his index finger to scratch beneath its chin, as he'd seen Sansa do so many times before. The kitten purred, and Jaime felt a little sinking in his stomach.

"The little girls at court all say that the fairies came to take Sansa away. They've made up all sorts of stories about it- about how the fairy king fell in love with her because she's so beautiful, so he sent his servants here to steal her."

Jaime tilted his head to look in Tommen's wide eyes, one finger still stroking the kitten's soft fur. "And what do you think, Your Grace?"

Tommen hesitated for a moment. Then he set his full lips into a flat line and shook his head. "There aren't any such things as fairies."

A current of sadness pushed its way into Jaime's chest at that matter-of-fact declaration, but he had little time to dwell on it; the doors to the chamber pushed open, and the council filed in.

Jaime stood and smiled at the sight of Kevan Lannister; he'd seen little of his uncle since his arrival in King's Landing. Ser Kevan had been absent for the official vigil over Lord Tywin's body, but he more than made up for it by spending three consecutive evenings praying over the embalmed corpse. He nodded to his nephew and gave him a smile that reached only his lips. Dark pouches of flesh hung heavily beneath his bloodshot eyes, the bones of his face pressed starkly against his thinning skin-  _Gods, he's gotten old._

Cersei had announced to the council weeks ago that Ser Kevan would step into his brother's position as Hand of the King- and yet Uncle Kevan did not take the seat designated for the Hand, instead positioning himself on Jaime's other side. As Kevan settled himself into the chair, Jaime glanced at his doublet and noticed the conspicuous absence of the Hand's badge.

"Should you not be seated at the right of the King, Uncle?" Jaime inquired.

His uncle responded with a lift of the eyebrows and a tiny shake of the head. "I am here only to observe,"he replied crisply.

Jaime turned his attention to the other side of the table, where Cersei stared at their uncle with confusion and consternation etched across her face. She had so little agency over her facial expressions now; Jaime could recall a time in the not-so-distant past when his sister could flawlessly conceal her emotions, keeping everything sealed behind a still and beautiful mask until she and her twin could retreat behind closed doors.

_Not so anymore,_ he reflected as he watched her lips grow tight, her eyes panicked. She dropped her hands down below the table, and he knew without seeing that she was twisting them into her skirts. Nervous and frightened and angry, his sister had never seemed more volatile- Jaime would be lying to himself if he denied the little twinges of arousal that the sight inspired, but they were more than tempered by concern and disgust.

The session began, but Jaime scarcely heard a word- nor, it seemed, did Cersei. She just flicked her gaze back and forth between the empty chair where the Hand of the King should sit and Uncle Kevan, who very deliberately refrained from meeting her eyes. He knew the source of her panic-  _if Uncle Kevan doesn't take the post, it will go to Mace Tyrell, there's really no other choice._ In a brief, mad moment of fancy, Jaime wondered whether Cersei would try to reintroduce the old idea of naming  _him_ the Hand of the King -  _I'd be a mess of a failure, but I would try. For Tommen, I would try._ But no. Too much had happened, too much had changed; she would never ask it of him now.

Eventually, the other lords at the council started to notice Cersei's silence- she'd never been so quiet for so long in the past. She quickly collected herself and began to speak again, although the tension never left her jaw.

Jaime felt a sudden pricking at his thigh, and he nearly jumped with surprise- North Star had crawled over from Tommen's leg and settled herself on Jaime's lap. Tommen's lips twitched with pent-up laughter, and the sight of a genuine smile on the boy's face, however small, lifted Jaime's spirits. He rubbed the top of the kitten's head, hoping that the purring wouldn't grow too loud, only returning his attention to the council at the sound of Cersei's voice, uttering a pair of names-

"..Tyrion Lannister and Sansa Stark Lannister."

He tilted his head upward in a jerky motion; Cersei's lips were pressed into a cold, determined line, her hands slightly twitching as she folded them on the table. The rest of the council shifted and murmured- even the normally-implacable Margaery Tyrell wore a frown on her pretty face.

Cersei continued- "They are fugitives and criminals, and they must be brought to justice. I propose that we increase the bounty on their heads and allot more men to the task of hunting them down and bringing them back."

He wasn't sure what possessed him next- Cersei had expressed this view several times before, and the council usually tried to placate her with non-committal agreement before ignoring the issue entirely- but for some reason (maybe Sansa's kitten in his lap, maybe the conversation with Tommen, or the one with Brienne...), he couldn't help but speak-

"If I may, Your Grace...I do feel compelled to point out a flaw in this proposal."

"And what might that be?" Cersei's tight lips spread into an expression that might pass for a smile- the most unpleasant, unnerving smile possible. He'd seen her use it before on Robert, on Tyrion, but never on him...it distressed him, but it only served to push his words along-

"You speak of adding more coin to the bounty. And if you wish to send more men out on this task, that will cost a few more golden dragons as well."

" _And_?" Her voice grew shrill, and Jaime studied her weird false smile for a moment, just long enough to replicate it exactly on his own face.

"And, as I'm sure Lord Slynt here can verify-"He nodded over to the Lord Treasurer, who looked very startled and reluctant to become involved in the conversation- "the Crown remains in very substantial debt.  _Very_ substantial. And I'm sure you know where most of that debt is due."

"What are you saying?" Cersei half-raised herself from her chair and leaned across the table, her eyes latched onto Jaime's. He could feel the bristling of discomfort from everyone else in the chamber, but he had to do it, had to go in for the kill-

"I'm saying that Casterly Rock won't be your personal coin coffer any longer."

"If the King commands it, then you have no choice,  _my lord_."

"I don't hear the King commanding anythi-"

"I am the  _Regent!_  If I order you to lend me more coin, you have to do it!" She reminded him of nothing so much as a squalling child- it was at once painful and perversely satisfying to behold.

"I don't think I do. Lord Slynt, considering the vast amounts of money that the Crown owes to Casterly Rock, am I under any legal obligation to keep lending?"

The man blustered and blushed for a while before giving his tremulous reply- "No, my lord."

"Well." Jaime leaned back in his chair and folded his real hand over his golden one. "There you have it."

Cersei closed her eyes for a moment, taking a long inhale through her nose. Her head must have been throbbing- he knew it, for he could feel a pressure knocking at his own temples.  _Your pain is my pain, my pain is yours..._

She rose. "My lords" Margaery bristled a bit, but remained silent- "I believe we've discussed all we need to discuss. If it pleases the King, the council shall disperse-"

"Wait!"

The room directed its full attention toward Tommen, and for good reason; he'd never spoken aloud at a council session, not once.

"..was there something else, Your Grace?" Cersei asked, trying and failing to erase the displeasure from her face before addressing her son.

"Yes." Tommen glanced over at Margaery, who offered him a sweet, radiant smile.  _She's a sly one, that one is._

The little King pushed himself up in his chair. "I need a Lord Commander for my Kingsguard. Ser Meryn is just the interim commander, and I don't want him."

Tommen smiled at Margaery again, then declared- "I want Ser Loras."

Jaime snorted with laughter, and the sound echoed conspicuously through the hall.  _That little upstart, named to the Kingsguard only a year ago...absurd._

Cersei seemed equally appalled by the idea, but she collected herself enough to give Tommen an almost-smile. "The council will have to deliberate over this, but I'm sure we'll find someone suitable..."

Tommen began to protest- "Not someone, I want Ser Loras!" And in spite of his distaste for the idea, in spite of the bruising to his pride, Jaime started to consider the positives.  _They may be a pack of flatterers grasping far above their station, but the Tyrells are powerful. Cersei's been trying to push them away, trying to fight their influence, but if they have no reason to defy Tommen, he'll have strong allies in them._

_And Cersei's grasp on Tommen will grow weaker and weaker by the day._

"As a former Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, I'd like to officially place my support behind the promotion of Ser Loras Tyrell and encourage you all to do the same." A bustle of surprise ruffled the council- Jaime glanced across the table and caught Margaery Tyrell's eye, and the dazzling smile that she offered him caused a pang of nausea at the base of his stomach.

But Tommen was grinning, and Jaime gave him a wink, placing North Star back on his lap.

The council decided to vote on the motion at the next meeting, and they adjourned. Jaime walked out with his uncle, accepting Ser Kevan's invitation for an after-dinner nightcap before the older man retreated to his chambers.

Jaime was about to head to his own apartments when a hand closed around his upper arm and drew him into an alcove.

Cersei dug her fingernails into his skin, and Jaime narrowed his eyes at her, his blood heating up once again-  _I wanted a fight from the wench, but this will be even better._

But then he noticed the whiteness of his sister's face, the despair etched across each feature. Her breaths sounded shallow and labored, and her voice cracked when she finally spoke.

"I want you gone."

He leaned into her, unable to keep the venom out of his whisper- "And where would you have me go?"

"I don't care." A chill seeped into his bones at the stillness of her tone- no pique, no rage, no temper.

She continued, still so quiet and hollow- "I don't care where you go, Jaime. Go to Casterly Rock. Go to the Free Cities. Go find Tyrion and your little lady. The two of you can take turns on her." His eyes flared, but she scarcely seemed to notice. "I don't care. But I want you gone."

"Cersei-"

She held up a hand and shook her head, and for the first time, he noticed the furrows in her brow, the worry lines forming around her mouth.

"Jaime. Just go."

And then she turned on her heel and swept away, leaving almost four decades of need and closeness and completion in her wake.

* * *

"I've been commanded to leave King's Landing as soon as possible."

Ser Kevan raised an eyebrow and took a sip of Dornish red. "Surely the King would never issue such an order?"

"No. This one came from my sister."

Kevan's other eyebrow shot up at that.

"Well,"the older man began, reaching over to refill his nephew's goblet, "if you'd rather not go back to the Rock right away-" Jaime pursed his lips with distaste, and Kevan nodded- "I do have a task in mind. I thought to mention it to Her Grace, but she's not especially keen on me at the moment."

Ser Kevan had explained the situation to Jaime- he had never actually agreed to assume his brother's former position- "Your sister assumes too much,"he'd told Jaime. "I've no interest in being the King's Hand, so long as she remains Regent. I've come here to advise her to pass the Regency along to me and either stay on as Queen Mother or find refuge at the Rock."

Jaime didn't believe for one moment that Cersei would ever agree to such terms, but after their encounter that afternoon, the possibility of returning to Casterly Rock with his sister was more than he could bear.

"What sort of a task?"

"There are still a number of Robb Stark's former allies who have yet to officially declare their fealty to King Tommen. The most notable and immediate, of course, are the Tullys of Riverrun. I would ask you to take a small group of men and pay Edmure Tully a visit."

The prospect of riding into Riverrun, of threatening and invading and confiscating, of looking into pained, disappointed Tully-blue eyes again...Jaime felt his head swimming, and he placed his goblet down.

Kevan continued. "It shan't be a pleasant errand, I can tell you that. The Tullys won't release control willingly- and besides, they're still rather sore at you for misplacing their niece."

"Misplacing." He huffed a breath through his nose and lowered his head- he could sense his uncle's quizzical stare, but he did nothing to address it.

A few long moments of silence passed before Kevan spoke again, his tone almost hesitant.

"While we're on the subject of Lady Sansa...there is something else we must do."

Jaime raised his head, his chest growing tight and tense. "Yes?"

"There's been... _talk_  coming from the North. Apparently, Sansa's disappearance is being heralded by some as a sign of hope. There are rumors that she is rallying forces to retake the North- the Lady Wolf, they're calling her."

He opened his mouth, a thousand questions poised on his tongue, but he found himself unable to make a sound.

"There's no evidence whatsoever that these claims hold any truth. It's nothing but fancy...no one has seen hide nor hair of the girl, from what I can tell. But if there's a possibility that she's still alive somewhere, then she can be used as a symbol, a standard. That makes her very dangerous indeed."

"What are you saying, Uncle?" He tried to swallow, but his throat proved far too dry.

Kevan paused. He reached his hand toward Jaime's, but then thought better of it. "We must spread word that Sansa Stark has died. We'll say that she drowned while trying to stow away on a ship headed east."

"She won't believe it." He blurted the words out before he could think, and Kevan furrowed his brow in confusion.

"Who won't? We're trying to convince the smallfolk of the Nor-" The implication finally settled upon Ser Kevan, and his eyes clouded.

_Cersei will never believe it, not without a corpse in front of her._

Finally, Kevan blinked. "There are many who won't believe it. They'll assume that it's royal propaganda. We just need to convince enough people to quell a rebellion."He sighed and leaned back in his chair. "I'm sure we can find a redheaded corpse to pass off as hers, if we must."

Jaime winced-it was easy to forget, given Uncle Kevan's mild nature, that he was the brother of Tywin Lannister. But then he would say something like that, and it would all become clear.

"Or, if we give out that she drowned, we'll just claim that the body disintegrated in the water." Kevan seemed rather more comfortable with that idea. "Do you have anything of hers- a piece of jewelry, perhaps, that she often wore? Something that we can claim to have taken off of her body when we fished her out of the sea?"

He slipped his hand into his pocket and closed it over a tiny silver ring- from their wedding day until the morning before her escape, Jaime had never seen Sansa without her engraved ring upon the fourth finger of her right hand. It had been given to her in Winterfell, and the rune-like symbols etched in the silver were supposed to bring good luck.

"I can't say it's worked very well so far,"she'd told him once, lips curving down into a solemn frown. "But it's pretty, and it reminds me of home."

When he returned to their chambers after the vigil, he'd found the little ring resting on his pillow, and he'd carried it in his pocket every day since.

"Yes, I have something,"he told Kevan, and the other man nodded.

"But what if she reappears, and we're all exposed as liars? What will we do then?"

"I do not know, nephew,"Kevan replied with a world-weary sigh. "We'll take it a day at a time." He leaned across the table again, a soft expression on his creased face. "I sincerely hope that Sansa is safe somewhere. Truly, I mean her no harm at all. She is a sweet child, and I'm rather fond of her. But for the realm's sake, for Tommen's sake, this 'Lady Wolf'figure must die."

_She's safer this way...the Tyrells will be eager to believe this story, the council will believe it, and Cersei will have even less reason than before to keep searching for her._

_The best thing I can do for her now is to "kill"her._

Jaime clenches his hand around the silver ring, so tight that the etchings will undoubtedly press patterns into his skin.

And he nods.

 


End file.
